


your boy is a supernova (your boy is a dying star)

by 64907



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Amnesia, Angst, Astronomy, Emotional Hurt, Internal Conflict, Internal Monologue, M/M, Misunderstandings, Non-Chronological, Non-Linear Narrative, Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-10
Updated: 2014-11-10
Packaged: 2018-02-24 11:02:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2579210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/64907/pseuds/64907
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"You're late," is all Jun tells him, in the end.</i><br/> </p><p>Or the story in which they live forever and go through multiple lifetimes and one of them is doomed to forget the lifetime before while the other is forced to remember it all.</p><p>Or rather, the story in which Sho has a lot of issues, Jun has lots of issues, and they clash together more times than they can count before meeting in the middle, but the real point of this story is this: how Sho will always find his way back and how Jun will always wait for him, and how they will always be in some kind of love with one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your boy is a supernova (your boy is a dying star)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is also available on [Livejournal](http://64907.livejournal.com/1361.html).

_The entire history of human desire takes about seventy minutes to tell._  
_Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of time._

Richard Siken, Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

\--

“I’m sure I’ll remember,” Sho says, when they’re both lying on the ground and staring at the stars which can only stare back and twinkle at different times. He says, no, _promises_ that he will, and when he looks at Jun, Jun’s staring at him with an indecipherable look on his face but there’s an unmistakable intensity in his eyes when he says, “No, you won’t.”

\--

Sho feels the air grow heavier and prepares himself. The ground shakes, but not enough to topple him, and he hears nothing but the wind roaring against his ears. He closes his eyes and instinctively clenches against the hand on his own, and it squeezes back. There’s a tingling sensation dancing against his skin and he exhales the breath he isn’t even aware he’s holding. It climbs up, threatening to take him to the edge, and just as when it begins to feel almost completely devouring, it stops, as abrupt as it came. He hears nothing but a slight buzzing in his ears that slowly begins to fade and feels nothing but sand beneath his feet.

When Sho opens his eyes, he’s standing by the sea, finally hearing the sound of waves crashing against the shore and seeing a gradually purpling sky on the horizon. He unclenches his hand and finds nothing there but air.

\--

He tries, again, hoping for a new outcome this time. “How come I don’t remember you?” and Jun doesn’t even look at him when he says, “Because you’re you,” and Sho’s suddenly furious so he says, “Yeah, well, fuck you, too.”

\--

“Do you remember how we met? For the first time?” Jun asks him, and Sho remembers water: the sound of raindrops hitting the glass windows in an almost staccato rhythm, the occasional bursts of lightning and accompanying sound of thunder splitting the already-gray sky. They’re in Jun’s apartment when Jun asks him that question, and there’s an unfinished jigsaw puzzle consisting of a thousand pieces lying between them.

“No,” he says to Jun softly, and meets Jun’s eyes. Jun’s eyes are probably the most expressive part of him Sho’s ever seen, for Jun can say something completely different and yet it’s always his eyes that will give something away. Sho sees a fleeting brush of sadness before Jun blinks it away and masks it under a façade of nonchalance. How he does it, Sho will never know. It’s one of the many facets Sho has grown to like about Jun, and definitely one of the sides that can’t keep him away no matter what.

If he can place Jun under a microscope, study every excruciating detail and keep it all for his own knowledge, he will.

“But I remember you,” Sho says, and meets Jun’s eyes across a drawing of stars, the sound of rain masking the irregular beating of his heart. Jun takes one of Sho’s hands in his own and puts their foreheads together and for a moment Sho’s frightened Jun will get to hear just how scared he actually is. When Jun closes his eyes, Sho does the same.

They remain like that, sharing breaths and warmth, paying no mind to the sounds of the storm outside.

\--

It always ends like that and always begins in the same way.

Sho will find himself somewhere, a beach, a meadow, sometimes in the center of a field, sometimes in a house, with no recollection of how he got there and what happened the lifetime before. He knows, deep inside him, that he’s had multiple incidents like this before, and every incident ends in the same manner as the previous one did. He will feel the sudden shift in gravity and know that it’s time. It’s always like that. He will feel as if something invisible is on the verge of taking over him completely and it will abruptly pull away at the very last moment.

And immediately after it’s all over, he will find himself standing in the same place he was before, only that he has nothing to go on except for a name that isn’t even his own.

\--

Jun twirls a decent portion of the shrimp scampi he cooked for himself and for Sho before he asks, “Do you know what’s the saddest word in the whole world?”

Sho has no idea what brought on such a question, has no idea what the correct answer might be, but answers anyway because he doesn’t want to disappoint Jun. “Always?” He thinks he has disappointed Jun for many times than he can count, and despite having no recollection of it, a part of him believes it to be true.

Jun takes a casual sip of red wine with an eyebrow raised at him, appearing amused. Sho can see a reflection of himself against Jun’s wine glass and if he strains, he can probably see how he reacts under Jun’s scrutiny and on being the subject of Jun’s amusement. It takes nearly all of his concentration to not squirm at the way Jun regards him.

“Almost,” Jun says after a moment of thought, when Sho nearly forgot what they were talking about. “That’s the saddest word.” His eyes never leave Sho’s, and Sho watches, fixated with how Jun’s lips move when he continues, “You almost found your way back. I almost got it. We almost met.”

Sho wants to ask him to stop twisting the knife but can’t bring himself to do so, can’t break away from the way Jun’s staring at him. There’s a fire dancing in Jun’s eyes, a passion Sho knows nothing about, and he thinks if he looks deep enough, Jun will devour him without a second thought. Jun’s being particularly ruthless, Sho has no doubt he can see how much his words affect Sho, but that doesn’t stop him. Cruel, Sho thinks. Jun’s capable of many things but he's more than capable of being cruel too.

He thinks Jun’s done and it's over when he hears him murmur softly, “You almost made it,” punctuating the statement with the sound of his fork hitting the plate forcefully. Jun finishes his wine in one gulp before standing up from the dining table in one fluid motion and taking his plate and wine glass to the sink.

Later that night, Sho finds himself unable to sleep, tossing and turning on his side of the bed, and when enough time has passed and the fleeting tendrils of sleep finally claim him, he dreams of grasping Jun’s hand desperately and around them there’s a blur of orange and purple and the sound of waves in the sea.

\--

He finds Jun in the most unexpected places.

Once Sho sees him though, he immediately knows. He knows this is Jun, he feels like he has known this Jun for as long as he has known himself. And suddenly, suddenly all the running in circles he’s been doing for the past few years begin to make sense because Sho has finally found him.

Jun recognizes him, which is a relief. The moment they meet, Sho knows it’s mutual when he feels as if he’s done searching, as if everything finally makes sense and every piece has fallen to place. It still doesn’t stop him from saying things like, “It’s you,” to which Jun will snort at as a form of reply. “Of course it’s me.”

Sometimes Sho will take that as a cue to hold one of Jun’s hands and feel as if he mapped the same lines over and over again before, only that he can’t tell for sure because he doesn’t remember. When he meets Jun’s eyes, they’re a mirror of his own and he immediately knows that Jun’s wondering about the same thing. Sometimes the sensory memory is so clear that he can almost say for certainty that he remembers, but it goes away as fast as it came like it never came at all. Sometimes Sho will just stare at Jun in a mixture of disbelief and wonder because the odds of finding him are very slim and yet here they are.

Sometimes, but only sometimes, Jun will take a step forward and take matters into his own hands and Sho will find that he can do nothing but follow Jun’s lead. When they part for air and Sho ends up looking at Jun like he can’t believe Jun’s actually tangible, Jun will laugh against Sho’s ear and say, “You’re late, again.”

\--

Sometimes, when the universe feels particularly cruel, he doesn’t get to find Jun at all.

\--

They’re under the stars and Jun’s naming each constellation like he’s very old friends with them. Right now he’s pointing to what he calls Cassiopeia, just to the left of the North Star (“Polaris,” Jun corrects him), and the way he says the name makes it look like they’re actually sentient beings. Irrationally and selfishly, he thinks Jun learned the names of each star member of each constellation in every star chart to compensate for the times they didn’t get to find each other, to have company for himself that no one will know about. Sho doesn’t voice it out, though. He knows better than to assume things when it comes to Jun, but it still doesn’t stop him, not really.

Jun’s now telling him about Schedar, one of the members of the constellation, when Sho reaches out and lets his fingers ghost over the markings around Jun’s lips; effectively cutting off whatever Jun’s trying to say. He has constellations here too, Sho realizes, and he thinks Jun may have actually managed to keep stars for himself. The thought delights him and he smiles, leading to Jun shooting him an incredulous look.

“What are you doing?” Jun finally asks, when Sho’s fingers don’t stop tracing the path of Jun’s nevi for the fifth, sixth time. He wants to commit this to memory, this moment of mapping out the stars he sees on Jun’s skin, tracing each mark and claiming them as his own, just like what the astronomers of the past did. When he looks at Jun’s eyes he sees the stars overhead reflected upon them and the beauty of it all makes him breathless. He leans forward, kissing each mark, following the path his fingers have taken multiple times, before finally kissing Jun.

Jun gives up on the astronomy lesson after that, claiming Sho’s nothing but a distraction (Sho claims he’s an effective one at that and Jun’s just a lousy teacher) and they agree to postpone it for tomorrow night.

\--

“I remember you,” he claims once, which Jun rebuffs with, “Not me, only my name.”

\--

When Sho walks the streets, the roads, anywhere really, he feels hollow. It doesn’t matter where he is at the moment. He ends up seeing a great portion of the world in a single lifetime and it’s a blessing if he’s considering it from the perspective of others. From his own perspective it’s a mockery because he knows he probably walked the same steps before but can’t remember ever doing so.

Sho doesn’t even know where he’s headed. In the back of his mind, there’s a belief that maybe, in the lifetime before, this Jun he’s looking for (hell, Sho doesn’t even know how this Jun looks like, doesn’t remember to be exact) probably told him where to go next time, where he might be. Only that because Sho doesn’t and will never remember, he ends up going anywhere, and that really screws up the statistics.

He hates it, if he’s being completely honest. He’s out of his element; he has nothing to go by other than this selfish determination he doesn’t even know the origins of. Sometimes when he reaches a certain point of exhaustion and it almost overwhelms him, he entertains the idea of giving up, of letting things be and letting this lifetime pass without understanding the significance of a name he’s always left with every time a new one begins. It’s tempting, too tempting in fact, to just enjoy himself and live with whatever he’s got, only that he has nothing and Sho realizes it’s only himself he’s fooling and he stops thinking, right then and there, and continues on.

As he continues to travel onward, his mind drifts and he wonders how this Jun is faring. Is he waiting? Does he also travel around the world looking for someone with only a name to go by and not much else? Is he also looking for someone whose face he doesn’t even remember? He wonders if, like him, this Jun is trapped in the same cycle of spending a lifetime and getting a reset when time’s up. He wonders if he’s the only one stuck in this state, if he’s the only one with a shell for a self and a void for a mind.

\--

Clad in red and surrounded by gold almost everywhere, Jun stands approximately thirty meters away from where Sho is when he answers, “No, Sho. I said them because they are true,” and it’s enough.

\--

Sometimes, when it feels like Sho reached a certain point and exhaustion saps every drop of his strength each time he takes a breath, when he finally feels the inevitable pull of his surroundings and knows that his time is already up and that he failed for who knows how many times, sometimes that’s when the universe decides to pull a nasty prank on him and lets him know that he just found what he’s looking for after decades of fruitless searching.

And when his eyes meet brown ones laced with a mixture of recognition and sadness, so much sadness and regret, vaguely, Sho thinks he can remember someone admonishing him for being late, too late, and it takes all of his control not to shout, “I’m sorry,” before everything overwhelms him and the cycle starts again.

\--

Sho can’t sleep. There’s a source of warmth on his left that his fingers itch to touch once more, but he suppresses the urge. He hears Jun’s steady breathing and lets him sleep. His mind wanders and he remembers the hours before, how his fingers wrote his story on Jun’s skin and how his sensory memory took over for him, how he let Jun in and how they made up for the times one of them didn’t make it.

He knows better now. Once, he might have thought that it’s his own inadequacy that keeps them like this, that traps them in circles until they find one another again. He knows now that that’s just his pride talking, that for this to work it has to be the both of them. Only that not everything is under their control and no matter how unfair Sho deems that to be, he can’t really do anything about it.

“I’m here,” he remembers Jun whispering earlier, and soon after he remembers Jun saying those two words like a litany, like Jun needs it said in order for it to be real, in order for everything to feel real. Sho thinks he understands because he spent most of his years unable to tell what’s real and what’s not. If he tries to recount the steps he took before meeting Jun (“Again,” Jun says, “it’s not the first time we met, trust me, so stop looking like it.”), he feels numb, desolate like only a thread attaches him with reality and anytime it will snap and suddenly he’s nothing but a remnant of a half-real imagining.

Maybe that’s how it feels when not only a portion but the half of your soul is what you’re lacking.

Jun shifts on his left and his face is now angled in such a way that any headlights from cars passing across the street grace his features. Sho reaches out to remove a stray strand of hair from his face and Jun scrunches up a bit as a reaction, and it makes Sho smile. “I’m here too,” he whispers against Jun’s ear, pressing a kiss at the tip. “I’m right here,” before he finally lets himself drift into unconsciousness, comforted by the knowledge that for now they’re both where they’re supposed to be and everything is real.

\--

Finally, Sho asks Jun, “How come I don’t remember you?” when Jun’s driving them across the state on a battered pick-up truck in the middle of the day.

Jun just shrugs. “You’re you, that’s why,” and Sho continues, his patience wearing thin, “Stop that! You know me, but I only remember your name, and don’t even think of denying—“ and suddenly his hands are gripping for purchase because Jun hit the brakes without preamble. Sho thinks the momentum was more than enough to send him across the road and he looks at Jun accusingly. He almost asked, “Do you have a death wish?” but Jun fixes him with a glare that sends a feeling of dread in his gut so he shuts up.

There’s a pregnant pause and Sho thinks Jun will actually kick him out of the truck and leave him stranded in the middle of nowhere when Jun grabs him by his shirt and kisses him senseless. Jun nips at Sho’s lower lip lightly, and Sho’s lips automatically part for him. After that there is nothing but heat and warmth, so much warmth that when it combines, it threatens to swallow Sho whole and leave him with nothing but his core. He tangles his fingers in Jun’s hair and pulls him closer, _closer_. One of Jun’s hands moves to cup the back of Sho’s head and every breath they share ignites a flame beginning from Sho’s fingertips, traveling up his arms before consuming, burning him whole.

We’re going to burn together, Sho thinks, and finds that he’s not averse to the idea. He loses track when one kiss ends and when another begins, and only knows that he needs more, more of Jun, more of this, and that it’s not enough, it will never be enough, Jun, _Jun_. There’s nothing on his senses other than Jun himself, he thinks Jun might as well claim him for his own and no one will really notice the difference. It’s Jun he’s feeling underneath his fingertips, Jun that he’s kissing, again and again without any intention of stopping nor caring, Jun’s scent filling his nostrils, and it’s certainly Jun’s voice he’s hearing when Sho curls his tongue in Jun’s mouth in pursuit for more. They’re both desperate, Sho for more of Jun, and Jun for something else he’s not telling Sho.

When this is all over, Sho thinks, somewhere in the portion of his mind that’s holding on to the last bits of coherent thought, he will remember the warmth and how it took over him and how he didn’t mind.

\--

He’s sitting on the floor looking at a massive white dot labeled with ‘Betelgeuse’ when he hears the question, and he answers, “No, but I remember you,” and it’s true, but only by half.

\--

He feels the sand against his bare feet for a moment before feeling them get washed away by the sea. The waves glitter like precious stones against the setting sun, leaving an impression of sapphires and emeralds in Sho’s eyes, and there, a few paces away from him, stands Jun, the sun casting shadows on his distinct facial features. Sho knows him. He thinks he always will, despite everything else.

“You’re late,” is all Jun tells him, in the end.

Sho smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “Far too late in fact,” he acknowledges sadly. “It’s almost time.” He already feels a creeping tingle that begins on his toes and knows it’s neither the waves nor the sand that’s causing it. His hearing is becoming gradually muted and he estimates that he only has minutes left.

“I’m sorry—” he begins, but Jun cuts him off with a, “Don’t.” He says it probably as sternly as he can manage. Jun looks at Sho and Sho holds his breath, suddenly wishing, however impossible it may be, that they can have more time. He wants to apologize for everything, for being late, for not knowing where to go, for keeping Jun waiting all this time. He isn’t certain of the last, but he thinks he may be right when he looks at the curve of Jun’s lips, at the markings around it. He wants to touch them, run his fingers against each but he doesn’t know if he’s allowed to.

Jun takes his hand and entwines their fingers together. “At least let me have this,” is all he says before squeezing Sho’s hand, and together they stand there, waiting for something that doesn’t seem to arrive, waiting for the inevitable.

The last thing Sho sees before he feels himself being spread too thin from where he’s standing is this: the sun finally sets, the orange sky giving way to a darker hue of purple with a number of stars twinkling, the sea continuous in its assault on the shore, and standing there, somewhere, is the half of his soul that he’s leaving behind.

When he comes to, the sky is already a dark shade of violet and he feels far more alone than he’s ever felt, for reasons he thinks he’ll never know.

\--

He dreams. He dreams of places he doesn’t remember going to, dreams of seeing monuments with Jun by his side. Sho loses himself in it. The dream shifts and in this one Jun’s driving, and there’s nothing but wheat stalks on the sides of the road and suddenly Jun’s hitting the brakes so hard it startles Sho awake.

He looks around and sees Jun’s sitting by the windowsill with a piece of toast hanging from his lips. He meets Sho’s bleary eyes with curiosity. “What’s wrong?” Jun asks, pulling the toast from his mouth and try as he might, Sho suddenly can’t remember what he was dreaming about. He shakes his head, simply saying, “I dreamt of you,” since it’s the one thing, the only thing Sho can be sure of.

Jun hums noncommittally, tilting his head. “Breakfast?” he asks, and Sho can only nod, but it turns out Jun had another thing in mind, and as Sho arches off the bed, toes curling, his fingertips buried in Jun’s hair and caressing Jun's scalp appreciatively, he thinks he should have known.

Later, when they’re both lying in bed and basking together in the afterglow, for a moment Sho sees a road, a blue sky, and feels searing heat, so much heat it’s nearly tangible, but when he blinks, it disappears without a trace.

\--

One time, he asks Jun, “Were you waiting?” and as a response, Jun gets up from where he’s sitting and leaves the room. It’s only when Sho hears thunder and realizes that there’s a storm coming that he allows himself to breathe.

\--

Jun’s wearing a red flannel shirt, one that has seen better days but every time Sho asks him about it he always says, “I like this,” and that dismisses the topic, like he’s grown tired of Sho asking the same thing over and over again. Sho believes the shirt has history, and that Jun’s actually sentimental despite appearing apathetic on most days. It’s a mask, and Sho knows despite his incredibly unreliable memory that Jun does it to cope. But he doesn’t ask to confirm any of it because Jun will just shrug it off and deny it. It’s how Jun is. Sho finds it amazing that he knows the way Jun’s mind works, and berates himself for not being able to do the same for his own.

This time Jun took them to a grain field, somewhere near Mikkalo road, where they’ve been for almost three hours. Sho asked him before why they’re here, but Jun didn’t dignify him with a reply and just leaned against his truck and looked at everything else but Sho’s face. Sho finds himself standing some thirty meters away from Jun in retaliation, surrounded by stalks of wheat and the clear, blue sky over their heads.

Four minutes before the third hour begins, Sho feels a sudden prickle dancing on his fingers, hears a distinct crack in the air. He looks at Jun and sees him wearing a sad smile on his face, and it’s when he realizes that Jun has known all along. He doesn’t know whether to thank Jun for his oversight or curse him because they’re almost in the middle of nowhere and Sho will never remember how he got here when this is all over.

The ground suddenly feels unstable and he sees acknowledgement in Jun’s eyes, sees acceptance. He hears the winds howling against his ears and sees the stalks of grain move like the currents of the sea. The prickling sensation he felt a while ago now climbs steadily up his arms, his chest, all over his body and knows that it’s only a matter of seconds before it hits, and when it does, it will only take a fraction of second then it’s done.

“What you said before. Did you tell me that,” he begins, hoping that his voice carries over the raging winds that he hears, hoping it’s enough for Jun to hear him. “Did you tell me that because I will forget, anyway?” A part of Sho hopes his voice sounds strong enough for Jun not to be able to tell how scared he is, how terrified he is of finding out the truth.

But he has to know. He has to know before he forgets and he thinks it’s a small mercy when Jun finally answers him with, “No, Sho. I said them because they are true,” and it’s enough, more than enough. He finds himself smiling despite being mere seconds away from being disappearing completely. “Will you tell me again? When we meet again, will you remind me?” and this time his voice cracks, and he thinks not even the winds can mask that slip but he pays it no mind when he sees Jun’s lips form a smile and sees Jun’s mouth form a, “Yes,” and hears the unspoken _always_. Satisfied, Sho closes his eyes and lets it all take over.

When Sho opens them again, he sees that the blue sky is filled with patterns of cirrus clouds looking like an imitation of the sea, and he finds himself standing in the center of a plain of gold with nothing but a fleeting memory of feeling immense satisfaction he has no idea what was the cause of. He feels a stinging sensation at the point where his neck meets his shoulder and rubs at the spot, his mind already wandering.

\--

Jun can probably name each star in each constellation and all it does is fascinate Sho more. This time, Jun’s talking about how supernovae are nothing but dying stars, captivating before their end and monstrous seconds before and immediately after their death. When Jun looks at him to gauge a reaction, Sho finds himself silently accusing, you’re not any different from them, then. You’re a dying star too.  
  
\--  
  
We’ll burn together, like this. Always like this, he thinks, but he doesn’t stop.

\--

“Sometimes, I don’t know if it’s real, if I’m real,” he begins, when they’re both finally sated and lying on the bed (Sho on his stomach and Jun on his back), waiting for sleep to take them. “Sometimes I can’t tell at all.”

He remembers feelings, dashes of it, and emotions that are mostly fleeting. Sometimes, Jun will do something with a glint in his eyes and Sho will react, and he remembers feeling this emotion before, and when he meets Jun’s eyes, there’s not much explanation there except for, “I know what it does to you, why do you think I did it?” He remembers how anger feels, sadness, happiness, isolation, helplessness, the feeling of being consumed whole by fire when Jun kisses him. He remembers how desire feels when it looms overhead, preparing to take over. He remembers the feeling of satisfaction, of contentment, and thinks it’s nothing but unfair when all the emotions he can remember he can only associate with someone he doesn’t, not completely, that he only has a name and a name is not much, if not nothing to go on.

He feels fingers moving on the back his upper arm and closes his eyes, thinking that he might forget about everything, but he will always recognize this touch. Jun’s fingers travel to his scapula, down his back, till Jun’s tracing irregular patterns as if all the skin he sees is a canvas set for him to write stories and create pictures on. His fingers pause at the back of Sho’s neck and he’s asking, “Does this feel real?” before dragging his fingers down again, this time following the path of Sho’s spine and moving back up when he reaches the edge of the covers.

Sho can’t help the soft sigh that escapes his lips. “Yes,” he says, and opens his eyes in protest when Jun stops his ministrations. Jun’s looking at him with his eyes narrowed, like he knows everything about Sho and has all the secrets about Sho for his own.

"If it looks real and feels real, do you think it matters if it's real?" Jun asks, and Sho doesn’t know what else to say to that, so he leaves the question hanging in the air.

That night, Sho doesn’t dream.

\--

Once, he tells Jun when Jun’s preparing pasta for the both of them because Sho’s, “hopeless in the kitchen, sit there and wait,” that he felt too stretched, too fragile and gradually flaking around the edges when he walked the streets of Paris while staring at the cobblestones beneath his feet. That any moment he thought himself of falling and wouldn’t be so against the idea of it and would consider it a mercy given the circumstances. He tells Jun how exhaustion stretches him thin, weary, and how it sometimes engulfs him that he has nothing left but a shell of who he is.

He tells Jun that sometimes it gets so bad that it’s like he can taste the blood pumping through his veins and yet it’s not enough and still there’s nothing, nothing to go by and nothing to ground him, to tell him that what he feels is real and that he’s breathing, he’s alive. He tells Jun that he feels like a nerve, exposed and severed with no chance of being mended and it makes him want to claw at his skin.

He hears the idle stirring of noodles and the occasional hisses emitted by the blue flame on the stove and almost thinks that Jun didn’t hear him when Jun breaks the silence with, “I know,” and before Sho gets to ask what he meant, Jun sneaks a glance his way, before adding, “I know how that feels.”

“Empty,” Jun clarifies. “That’s called feeling empty.”

It occurs to Sho, now, now that he’s staring at back of Jun’s head as Jun takes care of the dishes while Sho’s food is growing cold on his plate, that he always, always misinterprets Jun and everything he does, and that Jun’s right about the saddest word.

I almost knew you, he realizes, and has to tear his gaze away.

\--

“You think it makes you strong,” Jun is saying, “when you tell people how much you love them. You think it strengthens you, gives you the assurance you want in order to satisfy some need you decided to thrust on somebody else’s hands, but it doesn’t do that because it doesn’t do anything.”

\--

He takes his next breath against Jun’s neck and doesn’t resist the temptation to taste the patch of skin he finds under his chin. Jun moans in appreciation, and Sho’s lips travel from Jun’s neck to his earlobe. He suckles it a little and proceeds to whisper meaningless things on Jun’s ear, before Jun grabs his face with both hands and presses their lips firmly, this time with no finesse. Sho feels the hard line of Jun’s teeth beneath his lips, and then Jun’s placing his thumb under Sho’s chin, forcing Sho’s mouth to part for him. Jun proceeds to map Sho’s mouth with his tongue, beginning by licking the hard palate before swallowing any moan Sho ever thought of voicing out.

On Jun’s lap, Sho’s beginning to feel heady. Jun commandeers the kiss like Sho’s minutes away from disappearing, and his hands slip under Sho’s shirt and yet remain on his navel, his fingers ghosting over and over again on that certain part of Sho’s skin, as if else something was supposed to be there. Jun suddenly breaks the kiss and when Sho meets his eyes, Jun’s pupils are blown, and he knows his aren’t any different.

“Get this off, what’s wrong with you,” Jun tells him, pulling Sho’s shirt over his head, and Sho retaliates by opening Jun’s red shirt without bothering for the buttons, and this earns him a _tch_ from Jun. He thinks a button flew somewhere on their right but doesn’t find himself to care, and they both know Jun’s far from annoyed because suddenly they’re skin to skin and there’s so much, so much skin that Sho wants to taste, to mark, to claim as his. When he meets Jun’s eyes he knows he’s thinking the same thing, and just to spite Jun, Sho licks his lips and watches with glee how Jun’s eyes follow the movement of his tongue.

Jun’s eyes are almost completely black now, Sho can only see a thin, thread-like ring of brown and it sends a thrill down his spine. To see for himself how much Jun wants what he’s always wanted, it’s all the prompting Sho needs to let out an admission of, “I want—“ before Jun replies with a, “ _Yes_ ,” and it almost sounds like a hiss, like Jun’s fighting for his next breath, but it slips from his mind because Jun surges forward and he’s suddenly licking his way from Sho’s neck, down to where it meets his shoulder, and Sho can’t help fighting back a hiss of his own when he feels Jun’s teeth against his skin, and he thinks he may have moaned Jun’s name somewhere when Jun’s lips traveled down his clavicle and continued to suck and nip at the skin there.

His blood is boiling, and he thinks if someone were to cut him open right now for the world to see, his blood will run hot and scorch everything it meets on its path. When his hands grab Jun’s shoulders, he finds that Jun's blood is as scalding as his own and he takes a breath. A wave of something metallic and spicy fills his senses, and he pulls Jun’s head away (with difficulty) from his collarbones to kiss his already swollen and tender lips. Whatever form of protest Jun’s planning, it dies against Sho’s lips.

Their hands continue their travel across each other’s bodies, writing sonnets in each other’s skin with ink that leaves them wanting and desperate, needy. Soon, almost too soon but actually far too late, Sho’s fingers find the button of Jun’s jeans and he breaks off the kiss to say, “Get this off, what’s wrong with you,” and Jun actually laughs before replying with, “Then get off me,” punctuating each word with a nip on Sho’s right ear.

Sho scrambles to do so and watches as Jun lifts his hips, slowly, so very slowly like there not in the middle of _something_ and Sho makes a growl of frustration. Jun seems to hear him, if the smirk he’s currently wearing is any indication, and then proceeds to take his sweet time in removing said article of clothing, which effectively works on shooting Sho’s patience down and suddenly it’s his hands prying the jeans open and yanking them down Jun’s legs. Sho pushes Jun back against whatever room they’ve got and situates himself astride Jun, before tilting Jun’s head up to kiss him again.

\--

“We have all the time,” Sho’s telling him, to which Jun replies, “And yet no time at all.”

\--

The air feels too thick and the scent of petrichor is everywhere, flooding Jun’s apartment in Tokyo along with Sho’s senses, his nostrils. The thunderstorm is relentless; the then-occasional bouts of lightning became expected every few seconds, sometimes minutes. It’s only when the fifteenth (he counted) crack of lightning split the sky did he think of following Jun after he walked out instead of answering Sho’s question of “Were you waiting?”

He finds Jun sitting in the middle of the living room, assembling puzzle pieces to form a portrait of various constellations seen in the night sky. Distantly, he thinks that those stars can’t be seen from this side of the world. He doesn’t voice this thought aloud though. He knows he’s angered Jun enough despite not actually knowing exactly what he did wrong.

Sho sits on the other side of the jigsaw and tries to think of what to say for maybe thirty-six seconds before Jun breaks the silence and asks him with “Do you remember how we met?” and before Sho can reply Jun follows up the question with, “The first time.”

He knows Jun is aware that the answer is no and Sho honestly doesn’t see the point of asking something Jun already knows the answer to, but indulges him with a “No,” anyway. He thinks he may have imagined Jun’s shoulders tensing because when he blinks Jun’s back to his posture of concentration, like Sho’s simply intruding on his private time and he wants nothing more than to finish putting all the pieces of the puzzle together. He likes to think he knows better, but doesn’t want to assume anything like always.

“But I remember you,” he says, not looking at Jun as he reads the names of different stars, Vega, Sirius, Polaris, Betelgeuse. He’s wondering how to pronounce the last when Jun takes one of his hands on his own; Sho notices a puzzle piece he’s still holding on his palm, before he's placing a hand behind Sho’s neck and putting their foreheads together.

For a moment they linger like that, eyes closed and hearts beating, accompanied by the sounds of rain and thunder, and after what feels like an eternity, he feels Jun pull away and hears him say, “Not me, only my name,” and suddenly it’s the truth and it feels like swallowing acid. He hears the roar of thunder outside and thinks that not even that can mask how desperately his heart is trying to free itself and crawl out from his chest, to leave a gaping hole and a void as big as the one in his head.

\--

He checks the map and they’re somewhere in Oregon, surrounded by stalks of wheat dancing against the wind. There’s a clear, blue sky over their heads when he asks, “Why are we here?” and Jun simply shrugs and proceeds to drop most of his weight against the vehicle. Knowing Jun won’t dignify him with a reply anytime soon, Sho pouts, walking towards the fields and leaving a good distance between them.

He sneaks a glance at Jun who’s wearing a shirt that’s missing a few buttons, and darts his eyes away when Jun looks at him questioningly, as if daring him to say something. He still hasn’t forgiven Jun’s distraction in the truck earlier, how Jun dodged the question in the way he always does. Actually, if Sho’s honest with himself, he hates how he always falls for that trick of Jun’s, how it leaves him wanting and unsatisfied and frustrated with himself, with Jun, with everything there is. He feels a slight stinging on the side of his neck and unconsciously rubs the spot, suddenly remembering that Jun continuously assaulted his neck a while ago and realizing he doesn’t even need a mirror to see that the mark is already turning purple and beginning to bruise. He feels Jun’s eyes on the back of his head so he doesn’t turn around, refusing to look at how smug Jun is.

Almost three hours later, when he feels fragments of him slipping away and he sees the world shifting in acceleration, he thinks that Jun is unfair because he will have marks on his skin without any idea how they got there and who put them there. He thinks Jun is a selfish, selfish bastard who will never answer any of his questions, and a part of him hates Jun for being so difficult. But mostly, mostly there’s a big fraction of him that knows that that’s simply the way Jun is and Sho can do nothing other than love him all the more for it. He thinks it’s inevitable, that no matter what happens and how dismal the odds may be, he will always gravitate towards where Jun might be, and eventually find his way back to where Jun is.

He hopes he can always carry that belief with him, can take it with him anywhere and remember it so that he no longer questions himself in the moments where he’s in the middle of finding his way back. He hopes, however stupid that hope might be, that he can keep this memory with him, this realization that he’s not alone, never was, only parted, and that Jun remembers him, remembers every bit of what they had done and will never forget, and that it’s more than enough, sufficient enough for him to go on and repeat the cycle once more.

It’s Jun, he realizes. It’s always been Jun, and he knows that every cell in his body will fight if it meant finding his way back. It’s always Jun he will feel at home with, Jun and his star-kissed lips, his propensity for being vague and yet being completely revealing at the same time, Jun and his eyes that hold so much truth, much more than what Sho can bear sometimes. He wants these thoughts, wants to keep them for his own and wants to remember them no matter how impossible he knows it’ll be.

Instead, when it’s all over and he’s left standing in the center of god knows where, Sho feels desperation and hopelessness creeping to his senses and somewhere, somewhere inside him there’s a hint of contentment, of happiness even, and thinks how unfortunate it is that he can’t remember what caused the feeling, or who.

\--

Jun is a mixture of many things at the same time, Sho realizes. He wonders how many times he arrived at the same conclusion and how long it took him to do so each time. Jun can be passionate over one thing and appear completely disinterested in the next moment. He can be generous and forgiving and suddenly turn admonishing and cruel when provoked. He can appear indecipherable but when Sho looks, looks deep enough to finally see, Jun is nothing but a revelation, an open book with dog-eared, browning pages.

It feels as if he knows Jun like he will never know himself, and yet Jun still manages to surprise him more often than not. He’s enigmatic that way, Sho thinks, and it’s only inevitable that he’s so drawn, so attached to the idea of Jun that he can’t find himself straying too far.

Like a moth to a flame, he surmises.

With that thought, Sho thinks it’s justifiable if he allows himself to be consumed whole, and imagines that if someone were to remove his skin they will see how much of him belongs to Jun, how Jun is both underneath his skin and yet still living inside him, and how much of Jun he keeps close to his heart.

He thinks he will surely forget everything but it will take more than being doomed to a continuous cycle to make him forget Jun’s name. He has no justification for that thought, though. It’s a selfish one he allows himself to relish from time to time, when Jun’s being considerate despite Sho saying the wrong thing, when he finds himself lying next to Jun in a bed of grass and Jun’s speaking of stars meeting their end.

Jun is saying, “Even stars—“ and Sho finishes for him, “fall,” before he thinks better on it. He doesn’t take it back despite seeing Jun raise an eyebrow at him, and for a while he thinks Jun will accuse him again of being an awful student and an equally awful listener, but Jun lets the silence stretch, yet it’s not uncomfortable and Sho’s grateful for that. By now Sho already knows that the eyebrow is a sign of amusement from Jun, when he doesn’t feel like being too expressive and fails to grant Sho a small smile or even a significant glint in one of his eyes.

“Yes,” Jun says after several long moments of consideration. “Even stars fall.”

\--

“You always wear that,” he says to Jun when Jun opens his closet and pulls out a shirt that had clearly seen better days. Sho notices that the color is fading around the edges, its hem a little tattered from too many trips to the laundry, and that it’s even missing a few buttons. He doesn’t see the appeal. “I always took you for the fashionable one, but you always wear that.”

Jun scowls at him and puts the shirt on, his eyes not meeting Sho’s. “I like this,” he says by way of an explanation, as if that’s all the explanation Sho would need. Sho pushes, despite the annoyance he knows it will bring Jun. “Why?” he asks just because he likes seeing Jun annoyed, likes seeing him become agitated and intense and unforgiving and thinks there’s nothing more beautiful, nothing more sublime than seeing a raging storm trapped in Jun’s eyes.

Then Jun’s face shifts and suddenly the rage is gone, the earlier annoyance he might have felt disappearing without a trace. It takes Sho by surprise because of all things he expected, he didn’t expect Jun to let go of aggression that easily. He wonders if he said something wrong, again for it won’t be the first time, and waits, for a beat and then another, and when Sho opens his mouth to say something, anything to destroy the silence he isn’t comfortable with, Jun answers his question with, “You wouldn’t remember even if I told you,” and it’s true. It’s not like the half-truth Sho claimed some weeks ago, but the kind of truth that renders him raw, helpless.

There’s an undeniable resignation in Jun’s features after that, and for a while Sho leaves him be.

\--

“One day," he tells Jun, “one day you’re going to ask me the same question and I’m going to tell you the same thing.”

\--

There is a piano in Jun’s apartment and it's yet another revelation for Sho when he realizes he can play it despite having no knowledge that he could. His fingers remember, and he finds himself envious of them in that aspect. Sensory memory amazes him, how it sometimes takes over the knowledge and just applies, despite not knowing it can do so at all. When he tells Jun he can play the piano, Jun narrows his eyes at him before answering, “You always could,” and hands him a bundle of sheet music. As he scans each piece, he sees that Jun has a collection of well-known classical pieces as well as contemporary ones, and yet there are also those less-popular pieces from still the well-known composers. After all, Jun’s nothing but meticulous and that side of him shows through this collection, and Sho wonders how long Jun’s been keeping these and for whom.

“Do you play?” he asks, and has a nagging feeling he already knows the answer. When Jun shakes his head with a strange smile dancing on his lips, Sho knows he thought right.

Jun has a sheet for Canon in C and Sho decides to attempt to play it, and ends up playing it too well for his own expectations. It still doesn’t prepare him for the feeling of Jun’s breath against his neck, for his hushed whisper of, “I want you to play it while I do this,” for his hands sneaking around Sho’s waist and traveling lower, for the resulting gasp for breath he exhales in response, for his whimper of, “Jun,” and for Jun’s chuckle against his ear.

His fingers glide over the keys, shaking as Jun swipes a hot tongue down his neck and Sho has to bite his lower lip to keep himself from groaning out loud. He’s still playing, still pressing keys and producing Baroque music and gradually debasing it as Jun places one of his hands on Sho’s stomach and slips it under the hem of his shirt, ghosting over Sho’s abdominal muscles before reaching his pectorals. Jun’s fingers are playing too, Sho realizes, playing something different and something for his own amusement.

Jun presses a kiss to the side of his head, his fingers preoccupied like Sho’s, never ceasing in their casual exploration of Sho’s skin. One of Jun’s hands slips down Sho’s sweats and if he arches from the piano bench because of it, Jun thankfully doesn’t comment on it. He keeps up with the game though, despite Jun being a completely underhanded bastard and way, way ahead of him. He plays, or at least tries to do so, and if his fingers press on some of the keys with too much force or linger on some notes for far too long, he gets an amused laugh from Jun and thinks it’s reward enough when Jun’s fingers taking hold of him squeezes just right.

It comes to a point wherein Sho can’t take the friction anymore that he leans his head back on Jun’s shoulder, eyes closed and panting for breath. Jun is still telling him to play the piece despite Sho’s hands already surrendering, and it’s a pattern with Jun, a pattern he’s grown familiar with. Jun makes a bet, bets everything in Sho’s stead and by the end of it takes all of the winnings. It’s not a compromise, there’s neither a spoken nor an unspoken agreement between them because Jun just does things. Impulsively or deliberately, Sho doesn’t know, but doesn’t care for now because Jun twists his wrist and applies pressure in the way he knows will reduce to Sho to nothing but his bones, will make him fragile enough to break, but not delicate enough to never be rendered whole once more.

Sho’s fingers are no longer following the sheet music, one of his hands twisted in Jun’s hair and burying Jun’s head deeper, deeper towards his neck where Jun marks him yet again. When he tilts his face sideways he doesn’t bother suppressing a smile when Jun’s mouth immediately descends on his, and for a while they forget about music, about German composers and well-known pieces, and just create a rhythm of their own.

\--

The water is clear and it shines as if there are rhinestones beneath, as if waiting for someone to pick them up and tell them they’re special, they’re one of a kind and they’re for keeps.

He sees a man wearing a flannel shirt that flutters against the wind, standing close enough to the shore for the waves to dance around his feet and splash against his ankles, and it takes every bit of Sho’s restraint to not run to him. He feels drawn, like the bundle of nervous energy sitting in his gut is going to burst any moment, rendering him euphoric and at the same time depriving him of the thrill he has become accustomed with.

He manages to take a few steps closer before a sudden wave of queasiness hits him and he realizes that he’s too late, that time’s up and that he didn’t make it. When the man turns his head and Sho sees recognition in his eyes, he doesn’t bother to stop himself from saying the one word he’s come to know, the one word he feels like he's known all along. “Jun.”

For his part, Jun doesn’t rush to him and Sho notes that every step Jun takes closer to where he stands makes it harder for him to breathe, and that it’s absolutely impossible to breathe now that Jun’s standing in front of him. Sho knows this isn’t the first time he’s seen him, is certain of it the same way he’s sure of the steady drumming he feels in his heart. If Jun steps any closer, Sho thinks Jun will hear it, will hear how much Sho wants, how much he craves and needs. He clenches his hands in an attempt to suppress the tingling that’s climbing steadily to his extremities.

“You’re late,” is all Jun tells him, in the end.

He shrugs. “Well, you weren’t exactly easy to find,” hoping to ease a bit of the tension he’s feeling and the obvious tension building between them. It doesn’t work though, because Jun responds with a petulant, “I was right here,” with a dash of anger in his eyes and Sho doesn’t know what else to say to that. It confirms his suspicions that Jun is waiting, and he feels like laughing because he doesn’t know which is a far more cruel fate: to be the one who disappears and gets an unwanted reset every time or to be the one who’s stuck waiting for someone who might never come.

Maybe they’re both equally cruel fates and it’s the universe’s way of mocking their existence.

Sho finds that he can believe anything at this point. Here he is, standing by the sea, surrounded by sand and sea, the brightest star he has ever seen setting gradually, and right in front of him stands the half that he’s always searching for, the half he always felt incomplete without, the half that will make him whole, and yet because of some abysmal statistics they’re only meeting for the first time in this particular lifetime, just when Sho’s about to get his reset. He will never remember this. Jun may remind him of it for the next few years, for the following decades even, and Sho will never think of it ever happening, will never even consider it and they both know it.

He doesn’t know whether to treat it as a blessing, the fact that he won’t remember. He considers feeling thankful that he won’t because the regret he feels now makes him feel too alive, too real. Every breath he takes adds to the guilt and he has so many things he wants to say, so many things he thought of saying back when he was wandering alone and trying to find his way back.

He chooses to say the only thing he deemed appropriate. Not I want you, or it’s you, it’s you for as long as I’ve known, but, “I’m sorry,” and before he can elaborate, Jun stops him with a fierce, “Don’t,” and that shuts Sho up. He wonders if Jun has always had that power over him, if Jun always had that much power over him. He wonders when did he surrender himself fully, but perceives that he doesn’t really mind, doesn’t really care as long as it’s Jun and it’s him and there’s nothing else that truly matters for now.

The buzzing in his ears is muting the sounds of the waves, the scent of the sea dulled by the wave of restlessness he feels searing through his skin and pooling in his core. Minutes. He has minutes left. It could be the longest time he’s ever got in this lifetime or the shortest one, depending on how he chooses to spend it. When Jun takes one of his hands into his own and says, “Let me have this, at least,” Sho realizes it’s Jun taking the initiative and making the decision for him, for the both of them, and finds himself accepting it. He squeezes once, twice, and when Jun squeezes back, he thinks foolishly that he’s already prepared for the worst.

Inevitably, the worst comes, far sooner than they both might have expected, and before Sho fades away along with his memories, he remembers seeing Jun and his red shirt, his sad smile and equally sad eyes, remembers feeling Jun’s palm against his, both their knuckles white from grasping each other too tight.

When he opens his eyes, Sho looks at the sky and notes that there are a lot of bright stars that night, but that doesn’t assuage the crushing feeling of desolation swimming in his veins.

\--

“Do you know how it feels like to be alone? To be lost?” he says against Jun’s shoulder, his hand directly above Jun’s heart. Jun adjusts his head to look at Sho, to search for his eyes.

“Alone, yes,” Jun answers, his thumb continuously rubbing circles on the small of Sho’s back. “Lost, no.”

And Sho thinks, no, of course you don’t.

\--

They’re lying on a bed of trimmed grass when Jun points to what he calls the Andromeda galaxy and tells him about the mythological origin of the name, about the princess who gets rescued from a leviathan of the sea by a hero on a flying horse. He hums as an acknowledgement, vaguely aware that he doesn’t stop Jun from explaining despite the fact that even he knows the classic mythology of Perseus. He lets Jun’s voice lull him to a temporary state of calm, and just when Sho’s beginning to feel comfortable, he gets an unexpected feeling and suddenly he knows that something else, something different is coming.

“Oregon,” Jun says, completely out of the blue. The confusion must be evident on his face because Jun smirks a little when he looks at Sho as he continues, “That’s where I’ll be next time,” and for a moment Sho thinks time must have stopped, that his cells have stopped regenerating themselves and his blood has ceased coursing through his veins. He thinks of the stars burning above them, of Andromeda and of Perseus and of the fearsome Cetus of the seas and finally of Pegasus, and thinks he can probably fly at this moment.

Silence stretches for a while between them, then Sho finds Jun’s hand in the star-illumined darkness, his thumb rubbing circles on Jun’s knuckles, and promises, “I’m sure I’ll remember.” He can’t think of anything else to say, he wants to thank Jun for telling him, for giving a notice, and hopes, however foolishly, that he will remember this, the feeling of his calloused thumb against Jun’s smooth ones, the way Jun turns his hand and entwines their fingers together, the way Jun takes a deep breath and looks at Andromeda again, the feeling Sho’s trying to suppress, of wanting to take flight despite his acrophobia.

He meets Jun’s eyes and there’s something in there, something he can’t put a name on, and it’s different. It’s the kind of look Jun only makes when Sho’s said something either incredibly accurate or incredibly ignorant. He fears it’s the latter and confirms it when Jun says, “No, you won’t.”

Jun doesn’t pull away, but neither does he say anything for a long while, and Sho remembers Perseus and all the great heroes of mythology and thinks, how the mighty have fallen.

\--

Sho puts a hand between them, hears Jun sharp intake of breath in reply, and kisses the remains of that breath away. He moves his hand experimentally, trying to determine the right amount of friction that will leave them both keeling, but Jun clasps Sho’s hand against his own and suddenly he’s guiding him, showing Sho how to move, that this is how you move, and after that there’s nothing but breathless gasps and occasional moans of each other’s names.

He hears Jun repeatedly whisper his name against his ear and tries to find his mouth with their eyes both shut tight. Their noses bump and Jun laughs, actually laughs despite the situation and comments, “Classy,” and Sho responds by having his other hand grasp Jun’s face to capture his lips in a brutal kiss. The hand between them doesn’t stop moving and Sho adjusts his grip slightly and continues, reducing Jun to moans and breathless sighs, his earlier amusement all forgotten, and Sho claims it as a victory. He leans forward, his mouth on Jun’s ear, and says, “Let me hear you,” and something snaps in Jun, with the way his body tenses and one of his hands grabs Sho’s hip and clenches. Sho’s certain Jun’s gripping him hard enough to leave a bruise, and he catches Jun’s other hand in his own, kissing each knuckle and sucks a finger, then another.

“Jun,” he prompts, mouth still around Jun’s fingers and Jun answers by wrenching his hand out of Sho’s mouth and clinging tightly to Sho’s angular shoulder, before tilting his face so that his mouth is on Sho’s ear. Sho twists his other hand and hears Jun groan, his breath sticky and ghosting the sides of Sho’s face. If Sho so much tilts his head he can kiss Jun, can consume every breath, every gasp and moan Jun makes for him, but he resists the urge, the desire to hear Jun coming undone far too greater.

Sho’s hand then becomes unmerciful, unforgiving, _relentless_ , and despite the buzzing in his ears Sho hears his name falling from Jun’s lips, and for a moment he thinks he can hear a pin drop, and then there’s nothing but a blanket of white light enveloping him. Distantly, he feels Jun’s mouth against his and thinks Jun kissed him to silence himself, to keep himself from moaning Sho’s name as he tumbles over the edge with him. When Sho finally opens his eyes, he sees Jun’s mouth crimson and yet shining, looking completely obscene.

Later, when he buries his head at the crook of Jun’s neck in an attempt to catch his breath, he smells himself and everything they’ve done against Jun’s skin.

\--

“Do you know,” Jun begins, wearing a smile on his face that has no trace, no semblance of happiness in it, “what is the saddest word in the whole world?”

\--

I almost made it, Sho thinks, frustrated with himself, with the odds, with the universal constant. He tries to channel that frustration to something else more worthwhile, so he grips Jun hand as tight as he can and feels Jun reciprocate. When he inhales, he smells salt and catches the scent that he can only define as Jun. The certainty of it makes him smile, somehow.

Jun nudges Sho’s bare foot with his own, spreading sand over their feet, some of it clinging to Sho’s ankles and Sho takes it as a cue to ask, “Were you waiting?” and Jun looks at him like he’s an apparition, like he will fade any moment and it takes a beat for Sho to realize that that’s exactly what he is right now and suppresses the urge to laugh at the irony.

“What do you think?” Jun says, and when Sho begins to feel his molecules getting twisted and spread across dimensions he has no idea about, when he sees nothing but phosphenes in his eyes, he thinks, yes, you were, you always were, and the guilt follows him even if the memory didn’t. He suddenly wishes that it could be the other way around.

\--

“I’m never playing piano for you ever again,” Sho says accusingly, when he can finally breathe and everything went back to room temperature and Jun, being Jun, just laughs and laughs against his ear and plants a kiss on his cheek. They both know Sho doesn’t mean it, that he just says it as a form of retaliation because who else will he play piano for, who else will Jun collect sheet music for? After a moment, Jun simply sits beside him and puts his head on Sho’s shoulder and neither say anything, the silence far more comforting than words will ever be.

Sometime later, Sho softly nudges Jun’s head on his shoulder and offers, “Want me to teach you?” and Jun quietly laughs against his shoulder for a moment before acquiescing with a, “Sure,” followed by a, “Your shoulder sucks, by the way.” Sho nudges him hard enough to make his head fall off Sho's shoulder, and Jun just laughs and doesn’t stop for a while and Sho kind of hates him for it, except not really.

Jun pulls a piece from the stack of sheet music Sho discarded to the side before Jun’s underhanded distraction earlier and deciding it should be easy enough, puts it on top of Pachelbel and looks at Sho before gesturing that he lead on. There’s a tiny smile on Jun’s lips and Sho knows he’s enjoying this, and finds that he himself is also enjoying this as much as Jun enjoys it, these tiny little moments where they do nothing but be themselves and let themselves be whoever they want to be, these precious times wherein time doesn’t seem to exist and it’s just him and Jun and whatever they have right now at this moment. He feels content when he guides Jun’s fingers across the keys and tells him to press here, no, there, gently, be gentler, that’s it. There’s a glint in Jun’s eyes and Sho knows it’s mirrored on his own when Jun leans on Sho’s personal space and kisses him as a form of thanks. For a moment, Sho thinks there’s nothing bad about living forever and staying like this, just like this, the scent of Jun coursing through his bloodstream, Jun’s taste on his mouth, and his skin under Sho’s fingertips. He can stay like this, the idea of eventual stagnation not bothering him because for a moment Sho believes they’ll be all right as long as he has Jun with him and Jun has him.

When he voices this thought out loud, later when Jun’s playing the piece for the third time (on his own, Sho thinks he’s either a great teacher or Jun's just an exceptionally gifted student and a fast learner), Jun’s fingers halt in their movement over the keys and stares at him for a moment, and Sho suddenly feels terrified because Jun’s expression suddenly closes off and he says, “You say that as if we have all the time,” before pressing the next set of keys with too much force that the melody starts to ring against Sho’s ears.

“But we do,” Sho insists, refusing to back down from Jun’s sudden burst of anger (he thinks it’s irrational, he doesn’t know where it comes from and he hates how volatile Jun gets sometimes and it frustrates him that he can’t tell if he’s saying the wrong thing till he already said so), “We have all the time,” and Jun shoots him a glare that could probably kill if directed at somebody else.

Jun scoffs, “And yet we have no time at all,” and leaves Sho sitting alone on the piano bench, the keys untouched and silent, the notes from the sheet music burning their ink in Sho’s eyes, and feeling frustration gnawing at his gut, Sho rubs the edge of his palms over his eyes, rubs them hard enough till he begins to see stars.

\--

If Sho attempts to organize his thoughts and sort out most of his memories, he can remember sensations, brushes of skin against his, fingers exploring and claiming territory at the same time, kisses which work effectively against the deafening silence. He can remember experiencing arousal, how desire creeps underneath his skin, setting everything it meets on its path ablaze before finally pooling in his groin, and how he finds relief, sweet, blissful relief in the touch of another.

It’s the ‘another’ part he doesn’t remember, and once, Sho tried his hardest to recall, to knock some sense into himself because a fraction of him believes that the memory is there, just suppressed, just trapped by something, and if he can get that particular something out of his head then maybe, just maybe he will know, he will finally understand. It yields nothing, and Sho knows that no amount of recalling will make him remember when there’s nothing there in the first place, but still, on some days when everything looks gray and bleak, when no amount of rest will give him strength, on those days he forces himself to think, to _just think Sho_.

As a result he gets a migraine that makes him nauseous, and still, not even the pulsatile throb of pain in his head can make him feel that he’s actually breathing, that he’s a person and that he can function on his own. He buries his face in his hands, letting out deep breaths and convincing himself that it’s frustration, it’s frustration alone that reduces him to feeling completely helpless and utterly alone, it’s frustration that makes the solitude even more unbearable and too suffocating.

He drags his hands over his face, feeling heat radiate from his palms transfer to his cheeks, to his neck, where he feels his jugular continuously pumping blood, a signifier that he’s living and he’s breathing and there’s no way he’s giving up as long as he does so why is he even thinking it, why is he even considering it? Has he sunk so low to the bottom of the pit that he can’t haul himself back up?

No, Sho thinks forcefully, no, I have not. When he looks up, he sees his reflection and sees the darkness around his eyes, notices them growing larger as the days go by. They remind him of singularities, of things in the cosmos that consume everything in their path, of a massive void of darkness that traps even light. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks he may have known someone who has the universe inside them, someone who claimed so much of the universe that you can see remnants of stars on their face, all over their body. When he chases the thought, the possible memory, it disappears into a corner and when he follows, he’s suddenly facing a massive wall, a barrier that separates him from the other side where all of his memories, all of his explanations of now and of the time before lie. If he tries to reach out, the wall shatters to a thousand pieces, leaving shards shimmering on the ground like tiny, precious gemstones, and on the other side Sho sees a reflection of himself, only that it’s not him, not truly, because this one looks whole, this one looks complete, this one looks like everything he isn’t and probably everything he will never be.

He looks at his face in the mirror and sees that his skin is beginning to look ashen, like he’s not eating enough (which isn’t the case, he still endeavors to take care of himself despite his incredibly messed up situation, thanks), and sees that the then-purpling, angry bruise on his neck is almost gone. When he runs a finger on the mark, on the pangaea so distinct on his skin that he has no idea where he got, he feels the skin beneath his fingertip prickle to the touch.

It remembers, he realizes. What his head doesn’t, his skin does, and he lets the realization wash over him with a renewed feeling of hope, of belief. Sho thinks he won’t easily get over the fact that he feels inadequate, doesn’t think he won’t get rid of that feeling of helplessness combined with isolation immediately when he needs to, but thinks that someday perhaps, he will. It will take time, he needs to give himself time, needs to convince himself that if there’s nothing here for him, then somewhere else out there there’s something or someone waiting, and he’s just in the wrong place at this time.

And for the first time since finding himself alone and surrounded by stalks of wheat, Sho convinces himself that his solitude is only for the moment and it will be broken soon enough.

\--

When the euphoria finally faded for them to be able to arrange themselves, when Jun is still making sounds of annoyance at his now incomplete set of buttons, Sho asks him once more, “That shirt, why do you still wear it?” albeit phrased in a different manner this time. He may have asked the same question for the third time or the fourth, he’s not counting, but Jun sighs and he’s muttering under his breath about persistent bastards who don’t know when to drop it and when to just let something go, and Sho knows he’s won. He wants to say, “I’m not the only persistent bastard here,” but it will destroy the moment so he keeps it for himself, saves it for later perhaps.

Still, nothing could have prepared him for Jun’s answer of, “Because it reminds me of you,” and when Jun starts the engine and they both hear it roar to life, he says nothing and just lets Jun drive on and watches the sky instead. When Sho recalls the conversation two-something hours later, he thinks he prefers both of Jun’s answers and that he prefers them combined: that he likes it because it reminds him of Sho.

\--

Jun’s holding his hand so tight that it’s starting to cut off the bloodflow to the rest of Sho’s phalanges when he says, “At least let me have this,” and Sho lets him.

\--

Whatever Jun’s making smells divine, Sho thinks it has something to do with the shrimps he’s using for ingredients but doesn’t have the time to linger on the thought because Jun is suddenly telling him that he understands, understands how Sho feels and how he felt before: the emptiness, the solitude, the listlessness, and Sho knows that the only way for someone else to be able to say that is feeling exactly how it feels for themselves, and he wants to apologize to Jun, for taking too long, for making them both feel lacking, for making them inadequate, so he does.

Confusion sits well on Jun’s eyes, Sho notes, before Jun shrugs and says, “Not everything is about you,” and suddenly he feels stabbed, like someone embedded a blade through his heart, carved it out and raised it for the entire world to see. The apartment feels cramped, like it’s a room that’s too low to stand up in and too small for him to sit down on, and Sho’s in the center of it without a key to the outside, without any means of escape.

He tries to ignore the stab of pain searing through his chest, tries to ignore the sound of his beating heart and how each beat cuts a bigger tear open before creating another, and that if this continues, soon there will be nothing left of him but an empty chest completely devoid of life. It’s his fault, he realizes, his fault for keeping Jun this close to his heart and in doing so, he gave Jun so much power over him, so much that Jun can completely devastate him in five words or even less. He wishes he can counter what Jun said with, “Not everything is about you, too,” but he knows it’s a lie and if he already gave so much of himself to Jun, then Jun will only see through the lie as much he does.

Because they both know the truth and the truth is that while Jun is the one stuck waiting, he isn’t the one whose world is revolving around the other. The truth is that Jun may understand emptiness, may know the feeling of it, but what he will never understand is the depth of Sho’s, and Sho’s wrong, so very wrong to think that Jun will ever do.

\--

It’s fucked up, that’s what it is. Sho calls it the universe being an asshole to the both of them while Jun simply calls it as Sho being impossible and unbearable to stay in the same place with.

It happens like this: Jun’s telling him that stars are burning balls of gaseous matters, that they’re out there and every speck of dust they emit can float in space before finally reaching the earth, and if one of the theories regarding the beginning of the universe has an ounce of credibility to it, then each person carries a part of the stars with them. Jun’s telling him that each person is made up of different combinations of stardust, and says so with the stars in the sky reflected in his eyes and Sho takes one look at Jun’s lips and the surrounding nevi and he’s agreeing, “Yes, they do,” before he can help it.

Or perhaps it’s like this: when Jun is telling Sho about a galaxy that is more than two million light years away, named after some mythological figure, Sho makes a promise, just one, but it’s one he can’t keep and yet the only one he desperately wants to, and Jun instantly catches on to the lie beneath because he’s Jun, so he stops Sho from making any more promises by saying, “No, you won’t,” and they drop it after that.

Or, maybe it happens like this: Jun’s explaining about supernovae and how much destruction they are capable of, and Sho suddenly tells him that he isn’t any different, that he’s destructive too, that he’s beautiful and enticing at first before becoming threatening and inescapable, and Jun takes it the wrong way and he’s saying with gritted teeth, “I’m not like you,” and suddenly Sho sees red so he answers back, “Well, I’m not like you, too!” before he can think better on it and as a result, Jun gets up and moves away, leaving Sho in the company of the stars Jun’s made friends with and beside him, a Jun-shaped patch of flattened grass.

Or maybe, it’s all of those things happening and they’re both tired, so exhausted it makes them lose patience with one another, so it’s actually like: Sho getting tired of Jun’s constant efforts of showing him that he doesn’t matter, that he doesn’t matter to Jun as much as Jun matters to him, and Jun getting tired of Sho’s constant efforts of trying to understand him, even before he tries to understand himself because honestly, where does Jun fit in there exactly?

Maybe it’s the two of them failing to see things as they are and refusing to compromise. And maybe, just maybe, it’s simply the two of them, just Sho and just Jun, not Sho and Jun or Jun and Sho, but just Sho and just Jun, who are entirely different individuals who just happened to be the half of the other.

\--

Sho’s gripping one of Jun’s wrists so tight he’s certain it will bruise and become an angry shade of magenta come morning. He finds that he likes the idea of that, so he doesn’t let go, doesn’t loosen his grip. Jun tries to arch off the bed but Sho shoves him back and pins Jun’s other hand as well, and Sho can feel every inch of Jun beneath him, the entire length of Jun’s body under his, can feel the heat emanating from Jun’s body, can feel how Jun still refuses to yield.

Very well.

It’s a game then. It’s always a game with Jun and it's one in which he only lets Sho win when he feels particularly generous, when he feels like writing songs on Sho’s skin and when he feels like compromising. On some nights, it happens. Some nights, Jun just lets him, lets him take everything and Sho always remembers to take Jun with him, so in those nights, they tumble over the edge, together, feeling sated and wanting nothing but sleep almost immediately after.

Not tonight. Tonight, Jun’s fighting back, Jun’s unyielding and he’s fighting Sho, so Sho fights Jun in the best way he knows how: he loosens his grip on Jun’s wrists, moves one of his hands between them and takes hold, takes hold of Jun and hears him gasp in surprise, before Jun thinks of biting his lip and keeping any subsequent reactions for himself. Sho buries his face in Jun’s neck and just breathes, inhales Jun’s scent and as he does he smiles because he realizes Jun is starting to smell like him, beginning to smell like Sho.

Jun tries to arch back against Sho’s body, but Sho still refuses to give way. One of his hands, the one that isn’t touching Jun, slips a slick finger inside, and he watches with combined delight and fascination, endless fascination on how Jun tries to strangle a moan from the back of his throat and fails. Sho takes it all in, the sight of his hands reducing Jun to shudders and gasps for breath and occasional whispers of his name, the feeling of Jun clenching against his finger, one that later became two, three.

Soon it’s too much, too much for Sho to take in, that he reluctantly lets go of Jun’s cock to cup Jun’s face and he applies just enough pressure on his fingers to make Jun look at him, and when Jun does, he asks with his eyes and just says Jun’s name, hoping Jun understands enough. “God, yes,” is all the permission Sho needs and he pushes in, watches as Jun eases back to the slow, delicious burn, watches the color rising to his cheeks, his legs wrapping around Sho’s hips and keeping him there. Jun’s hands are now drawing stinging patterns on Sho’s back, his side of the story now etched on Sho’s skin.

He’s not even aware he’s repeating Jun’s name over and over again till Jun answers him with a panting gasp of, “I’m here,” so Sho abandons any pretense of taking it slow after that, and it’s messy, fast, too fast that when Jun can’t keep it to himself, can’t keep it any longer and he forms Sho’s name on his lips breathlessly, Sho responds by biting Jun’s neck and giving the skin an apologetic lick afterwards. Jun bucks helplessly, unable to do anything else, and then Sho’s pushing hard, back into the heat of Jun’s body, pushing all the way, and the room is filled with nothing but hushed breaths, the sound of bodies coming together, the lingering promises and assurances of, “I’m here,” repeated over and over.

One of Jun’s hands finds its way to Sho’s stomach, and Jun pries Sho’s head away from his neck just enough to look at him and tell him how much he needs Sho’s hand on him, how much he needs to come. When Sho doesn’t move fast enough, Jun removes one of Sho’s hands from his hips and puts it on his cock instead, his eyes instructing Sho to move and to never stop, and when Sho finally acquiesces, Jun’s coming, body betraying the need and not long after Sho joins him, joins Jun and together they both abandon themselves in it, together they let their minds white out.

\--

Sho’s stubborn, but then again Jun is too, and he thinks maybe that’s what makes them click. Whenever they butt heads it takes a while before someone relents (usually it’s Sho because he finds himself unable to stay angry at Jun for too long. He dares anyone to try), but sometimes, sometimes the frustration seeps through the tiny cracks they both hid under their skins and wrapped with their bodies and one of them just snaps inevitably.

Sho’s voice is hard when he asks, “How come I don’t remember you?” and he’s glaring daggers at Jun, daring him to dodge the question and say something else, anything new, anything but, “Because you’re you,” and suddenly he feels like tackling Jun to the ground and wrenching the truth from him because Jun had just said the same shit he’s been telling Sho over and over again and Sho’s sick of it, he’s tired of it all.

“Fuck you,” he says, seething, and leaves the room.

\--

Sho grabs one of Jun’s arms and turns him around, saying, “Stop running, stop getting away from me when everything becomes too much,” and watches in frustration as Jun wrenches out of his grip and looks at him with eyes as tumultuous as the raging sea. He refuses to back down, aware that like Jun, he has a portion of the storm too, there's a storm inside him and he'll meet Jun head on, and it's strong, so fierce in its rage that he believes it’s what makes them work together despite having so many differences and so many misunderstandings.

“It’s what you do,” he accuses Jun, “you run, you run away from the problem, from me.”

“No I don’t,” Jun spits, every word filled with anger, so much anger and it’s all directed at Sho and his inability to understand, his incapacity to cope with Jun’s volatility, and apparently Jun’s far from done because he adds, “I’m not the one disappearing,” and Sho wonders whatever did he do to deserve this, to be the subject of Jun’s ire and the source of Jun’s endless frustrations, for his shortcomings to always be a point of contention between them.

He sighs, already predicting this is one misunderstanding he will concede to Jun, but anger looms its ugly, big head and he’s saying, “No, but you’re the one hiding,” and when he feels Jun’s knuckle splitting his lip, the impact making him unsteady and darkening his vision for a moment, he thinks maybe he deserved it and relishes the feeling because the blood trickling down his broken lip is real, the sting he feels from the cut is enough to ground him and tell him he’s here, Jun’s here, and they’re handling this the way they handle it best.

Sho laughs, and where that came from he has no idea, only that it seemed to be the most appropriate thing to do so he does it. He laughs and laughs and continues laughing, till he can feel the blood trickling down his chin, before he thinks of wiping it away with his sleeve and darting out a tongue to chase the taste of it away from his lips. He taunts, “Struck a nerve, didn’t I?” and Jun’s reaction is worth it, so very much worth it when Jun throws another punch his way and he dodges in time to catch Jun’s wrist mid-air, he thinks it’s all worth the risk when Jun tries to land another using his other fist and Sho catches that as well, just before it can make contact with his jaw for a second time.

They remain like that, Sho’s hands wrapped around Jun’s wrists, Sho’s blood continuously dripping to the ground, its metallic scent permeating the air and sifting through whatever tension that’s currently building between them, Jun’s eyes narrowed in combined pent-up frustration and anger, Sho’s seeking his, slowly answering Jun’s aggression with an offer of meeting in the middle, with an offer for a possible compromise. For a moment Sho considers regretting it, considers regretting provoking Jun, but finds that he can’t bring himself to do so because Jun has never looked more beautiful when he’s furious, never looked more destructive and dangerous when Sho’s the cause of it all, and Sho realizes he loves Jun for it, loves him all the more.

“Stop running,” he says when Jun stops resisting, when he finally lets Jun go. Jun doesn’t give any indication of hearing him and Sho almost gave up on this, this fight they’re having, almost deemed it as a lost cause and one that will earn him a cold shoulder for a few days, maybe for a week, that is until Jun looks at him with resignation and asks in a small voice, “What do you want from me?”

And Sho closes his eyes, suppresses the urge to laugh again because no, no. Jun still doesn’t get it, but now they're both on equal ground because hell, Sho doesn’t understand Jun either, doesn’t understand most of what Jun chooses to do and why he chooses to do it and it feels like a reprieve when he finally learns Jun that is the same, that he doesn’t understand Sho too, that Sho’s wrong on so many accounts and he’s so very wrong when he assumed Jun just gets him when in reality, neither of them truly do.

“One day,” Sho tells him, says it in such a way that Jun listens, his own eyes mirroring Jun’s, intense and sparkling. “One day you’re going to ask me the same question and I’m going to tell you the same thing, fuck my screwed up memory when I get a reset, never mind that, but when you ask me that again, I will say that that’s a question you should never ask anyone, ever, not even me.”

\--

The first time he meets Jun, he thinks he’s standing on some beach in some peninsula he can’t recall the name of and he’s watching the storm brewing in the distance. Or at least that’s how it feels like because every time he meets Jun it feels like Sho’s meeting him for the first time, like he finally finds the missing puzzle piece to attach at the center to complete the picture and like everything in the universe has fallen into its rightful place.

Jun tells him it isn’t the first time though; that they met countless times before and that it amazes him so much that Sho always manages to look stupefied every time they meet, to the point that he no longer finds it a surprise. Then again, Sho thinks it isn’t his fault he forgets every time, it’s the way things are and he’s made peace with that (though it still makes him feel bitter almost all the time), so he thinks he’s excused if he lets the shock and disbelief become evident on his face. It’s not everyday he gets to find what he’s looking for, after all. Or who.

So when Jun asks him if he remembers the first time they met, he answers truthfully with a no and postpones the question for another day, the one in which he asks Jun to tell him how the first time truly felt, just to understand how come it remains to be so different from the other times. And one day, Jun surprisingly just tells him without any prompting, while there’s coffee in his preferred mug and in Jun’s, while the sun is out and their clothes are hanging out to dry. From his place by the window, Sho can see Jun’s favorite flannel shirt fluttering against the cool breeze and he thinks he is finally beginning to understand.

\--

They’re at the porch when they both see a shooting star and when Sho reacts excitedly, Jun pushes his glasses to the tip of his nasal bridge before correcting him, “Meteor. Nobody calls them shooting stars anymore,” and Sho sticks his tongue out at Jun, which makes Jun roll his eyes at him, something he does and saves only for the moments when Sho’s being petty. Like now.

Sho’s still a bundle of energy unspent when another meteoroid follows, and soon they’re watching a meteor shower and Sho suddenly feels de-aged, like he’s six or seven again and learning about his fate for the first time, only that he doesn’t know that, doesn’t remember it happening at all. Still, he thinks he can associate the giddiness he feels to a certain age far younger than he is now. In truth, Sho feels old, stretched, like time has caught up with him all of a sudden and it’s telling him it’s time to go, time to leave. Funnily enough, he knows of a recurring event which indicates exactly that, and it’s a sore topic even for him so buries the thought away and focuses instead on the rare moment of watching stars fall.

When the spectacle is over, he leans back and says, “I told you,” to Jun who raises an eyebrow at him quizzically. “Even stars fall,” he finishes, and there’s a smile on his face and it’s genuine, he feels immensely satisfied that he didn’t dare mask the hint of smugness in his voice earlier and that’s something he knows Jun caught on, if his still-raised eyebrow serves as any indication. Sho feels incredibly self-satisfied, so he lets Jun know it, rubs it in Jun’s face in the way he knows will annoy Jun, but not enough to lead to a possible fight, just enough to get on Jun’s nerves, enough to earn him maybe a carefully thought out rebuff, or if he’s lucky, a kiss. Sho’s actually betting on the latter one but he won’t let Jun know that.

They spend the next few minutes in companionable silence after that, Sho trying not to let his disappointment show and failing miserably, Jun trying to pay him no mind and trying not to show his amusement at Sho’s childish antics, also failing miserably at both. The seconds tick by and Sho’s tapping his fingers against the armrest of his chair, trying to think of something to say, something clever, something that will give him an excuse to plant a kiss on Jun’s lips because Jun’s wearing glasses and Sho’s only human and he dares anyone to try to resist Jun when he looks like this, looking contemplative, his eyes swimming with secrets only he himself knows. It’s irresistible and Sho has to restrain himself because if there’s one thing he learned it’s that Jun’s volatile most of the time, and just because he isn’t saying anything doesn’t mean he’s also thinking about nothing.

He hears Jun hum after a moment and he knows that, he recognizes that that is Jun’s way of replicating Archimedes’ “Eureka!” and waits. For a while Jun doesn’t say anything, so neither does Sho, and the silence that was once comfortable and relaxing suddenly turned nervous, tense. Sho can’t tell if it’s just him feeling that or it’s the both of them, but he waits and continues to because any moment now Jun will say something, because that’s how Jun is. He’s always been the type who says what’s on his mind, the inquisitive type who’s always thirsty for knowledge and for more of it, and when he gets it, the type who shares it immediately just to say that he knows, that he's aware of this much.

Jun hums again, the meaning of which still imperceptible to Sho, but it successfully breaks the silence, and soon after Jun muses, “But even stars die,” seemingly to himself, and he looks so lost in this particular thought that Sho doesn’t bother correcting him, doesn’t bother saying, “That’s not what I said,” because all of a sudden he remembers a recent misunderstanding, one that happened a few weeks ago, the one wherein Jun’s mood shifted because he compared their situation to a stellar explosion and the truth of it became too much to bear that Jun actually left him alone. He remembers that night, so vividly that despite the itching he feels to ask Jun to elaborate, he suppresses it and chooses to keep the thought to himself and looks out to the night sky instead, silently praying for another one to fall, just one, just to prove Jun wrong.

Nothing comes, and for the rest of the night, the sky remained as a dark canvas dotted with twinkling balls of gas.

\--

Sho finds himself standing some thirty meters away from Jun in retaliation, surrounded by stalks of wheat and the clear, blue sky over their heads.  
  
Before he can take another step further, he hears Jun calling his name softly and when he turns, he sees Jun walking towards him, sees how the faded red of Jun’s shirt is a stark contrast against their surroundings, and sees how Jun seems to make haste in getting to where he is. He feels a little happy about that but he doesn’t let it show, and when Jun stands in front of him he tilts his head questioningly, and for a good while they simply stare at each other, Jun on Sho’s face, Sho on Jun’s eyes, his cheekbones, the moles scattered around his lips, the hard, unyielding line of his distinct eyebrows.  
  
When one of Jun’s hand reaches out to stroke the side of Sho’s face, he suppresses the urge to shiver, but when one of Jun’s fingers trace the lines forming around one of his eyes, this time, Sho doesn’t stop himself from sighing. “I think,” he says, unbidden, “I think I might actually be—” and his voice catches at his throat, but it’s enough of an admission, one he doesn’t feel embarrassed about, an admission that for once, doesn’t render him exposed and unprotected, doesn’t render him bare and fragile and insubstantial. He hears more than he sees Jun’s smile at that, and Jun’s looking at him like he’s the one seeing Sho for the first time, like their roles are reversed and Sho’s the one waiting for him all this time.  
  
When he tries to speak again, tries to let Jun know, Jun silences him with a, “Shh,” followed by an, “I know,” his thumb tracing Sho’s laugh lines once more before walking away, before standing where he was before he called Sho’s name. At first Sho doesn’t understand, doesn’t get why Jun suddenly needed to be away from him, but when he tries to take a step forward, one to follow Jun, he suddenly feels spikes of electricity dancing on his fingers and he looks at Jun in alarm because the last thing he expected is this. When he sees Jun shake his head once, a sad smile gracing his lips, it’s when he realizes Jun has known all along and that’s why he brought Sho here.  
  
The distance between them is too far for Sho’s liking and for a moment he considers that Jun probably needs this, this space he put between him and Sho, and that it probably comforts him. He thinks Jun probably needs to see Sho disappear far away from him because at least Jun has the justification that he isn’t standing close enough, that he’s standing far enough from Sho to be able to do anything, to even attempt to stop it all from happening. He wonders then if he ever disappeared before with Jun by his side. Jun seems to sense this line of thought because he looks at Sho and blinks once in affirmation.  
  
The creeping sensation is steadily climbing up Sho’s arms and his head’s already buzzing, so he raises his voice in an attempt to clear some of the tinnitus he’s beginning to hear when he asks, “How do you know?” and it’s an overdue follow-up to Jun’s, “I know,” from earlier but Sho has to know, and when he starts to hear the wind howling, he prays to whatever deity out there that Jun will deem his question worthy of a response. He doesn’t have to pray long though, because Jun says, “Because like you, I might be, too,” his voice carrying out despite the winds, and it’s all the admission he will ever get from Jun in this particular lifetime, and yet for once, Sho feels like he’s seeing Jun, finally seeing who he is and wonders if he only gets to feel this whenever he’s minutes away from fading and forgetting. He hopes not.  
  
Sho’s selfish, and frankly, a bit of an asshole too, so when his sensations become muted and replaced by something he supposes he should be accustomed to feeling and yet he still isn’t, he doubts Jun’s veracity and voices it out as loudly as he can manage. “Did you tell me that because I will forget anyway?” and thinks, if Jun says yes, then for once, Sho can feel thankful over the fact that he’s the one forgetting because he knows Jun knows exactly just how far his earlier admission stretches, and it’s cruel enough to make him remember all of that when Sho won’t even remember ever saying it. He thinks it’s payback, payback for Jun’s mark on his neck, the one that will fade over time but will still leave him wondering, wondering if anyone truly wanted him that much to leave that with side of them with him.  
  
And yet, _yet_. Sho’s not capable of being that cruel, so when his voice gives way to fear, he lets it show, lets Jun hear it. The seconds tick by and he tells himself it’s fine, if Jun says otherwise then it’s okay, for he will not remember this anyway. He will remember the fear and the possible subsequent rejection but definitely not what caused it. He will remember being terrified of knowing, knowing and hearing the truth, but he won’t remember whose truth it is he is currently scared of. It’s a small mercy, at least.  
  
But Jun has always been the cruel one, and Sho proves this for himself for the god knows how many times now when Jun says, “No, Sho. I said them because they are true,” and Sho notes, not were, but _are_. He thinks it might actually be a universal constant, this thing between him and Jun (‘thing’, he still doesn’t know what to call it. It can’t be fate because fated people are supposed to be together no matter what, and truthfully, he and Jun are so far from that) and that whatever it is he has inside himself might also be inside Jun as well, and really, does that make them so different from each other? He starts to think otherwise.  
  
“Will you tell me again?” he asks, knowing that if Jun says yes, it’s a promise, albeit one he won’t remember, but a promise is a promise and Jun isn’t the type, has never been the type to turn back on his promises. “When we meet again,” he clarifies, “will you remind me?” because a part of Sho, the part he calls as his own and belongs to himself alone, believes that it’s not a matter of if they will meet again, it’s a matter of _when_. He hopes he can carry that mindset with him once he fades away, hopes despite knowing the improbability of being able to. He hopes he can remember what determination feels like, what belief does to a man, and how faith, no matter how miniscule can change a lot of things.  
  
It’s time. Colors are swirling in his vision and the blue of the sky is mixed with the shining, bright yellow of the fields, continuously combining and creating dashes of green, and somewhere, somewhere in the plethora of hues in Sho’s eyes, there’s a distinct splash of red. It stands out and he thinks, how fitting, and that’s when he sees Jun’s mouth form a yes, sees it more than he hears it, and it makes him smile. Somehow, amidst the unforgiving winds against his ears combined with the buzzing he feels in his head, somehow he still manages to hear _always_ , and he doesn’t think it’s an imagination, doesn’t think it’s a delusion he made for himself to feel better because while there are so many things Sho doesn’t know, doesn’t remember, some things he just does, and he knows that’s just how these things are going to be.  
  
For the first time in this lifetime, he feels ready, and in the last few seconds before he shuts his eyes, he feels thankful that he told Jun and that he asked.

\--

“I dreamt of you,” he says because he can’t remember what it was he was dreaming about, not exactly, only that Jun was there, and honestly, there’s nothing new about that. Jun is everywhere, even if Sho doesn’t know his face, he knows his name and more often than not, Jun’s the one thing he continues to hold on to, even when everything starts slipping away and becomes too much to bear.

Jun, thankfully, doesn’t even look surprised. Someday Sho’s going to ask him if it’s mutual, if Jun dreams of Sho too, and if every dream with Sho in it makes him feel boneless, unable to do anything other than continue drifting in unconsciousness. Someday Sho’s going to ask him if he dreams of wanting something he probably had, once or more than once, but has no idea how to get it again, how to find it again, where to look, where to even begin.

When he accepts Jun’s offer of breakfast and he’s dragging his fingers against Jun’s scalp and he feels nothing but Jun’s mouth, his touch, his trembling lips around Sho, when Jun takes him to heights that make him feel like he’s the king of the world, that’s when Sho remembers that he’s seen Jun’s favorite shirt before, remembers almost tearing it apart because it was on the way, and when Sho’s mind blanks and he’s losing himself in Jun, he forgets the memory altogether.

He’s trying to learn how to breathe again as Jun’s planting kisses, moving up his body and lingering for a while on his jaw. When Jun’s lips finally land on his he doesn’t resist, but when he tries to deepen the kiss Jun is suddenly pulling away, saying, “Good morning to you too,” with a hint of a smile on his lips and mirth in his eyes.

Sho tries to make peace with the fact that Jun will always catch him off-guard like this, that he will never hesitate to use every trick he’s got up his sleeve. Why Jun does it, he doesn’t truly know, but sometimes, sometimes he allows himself to entertain the thought that Jun does it to help Sho remember, to help him remember that this is how it feels, that this is exactly how it feels to be with him, and that it will never feel the same with anybody else. Jun’s selfish that way, and there are nights when Jun abandons the cool façade he uses most of the time in front of Sho, and during those nights he’s leaving marks on Sho’s skin, turning every part of Sho into a work of art. He cherishes those nights with Jun because those are the only times Sho gets to see desperation in him, the only time he gets the proof that he needs to be able to say that he’s not alone in this, he’s not alone in wanting to hold on for as long as they’re both allowed to.

Later, when they choose to remain in bed and don’t want to move despite the morning already turning to midday, when Sho’s head is pillowed on Jun’s shoulder and Jun’s thumb is drawing something on his back, he asks, “Do you know how it feels like to be alone? To be lost?” and this close, Sho can feel the steady thrum of Jun’s heart under his fingertips, as if he only needs to reach out to take it in his hands, to examine it and to see if his name is on it like Jun’s is on his.

“Alone, yes,” Jun answers after a while. “Lost, no,” and frankly, it’s the honesty evident in his voice that breaks Sho, the way Jun didn’t even hesitate to let him know that no, he doesn’t understand how Sho feels for more than half of his life, the way Jun’s undoubtedly twisting the knife again without feeling an ounce of guilt, making Sho bleed and letting his blood run dry.

He wants to ask, why do you do this, why do you always do this, does it make you happy, satisfied, does it make you feel less alone when you’re saying things that hurt, things that cut? He wants to know what Jun gets out of it, what Jun gets from reducing Sho to boneless, peaceful bliss before taking it all back using five words or even less. He wants to know why Jun abuses the power he knows he has on Sho, why he persists on alienating Sho from him. Sho has a lot of questions, but most of those questions revolve on why Jun is the way he is, and whether he’s always been like this or he’s only like this when he’s with Sho.

Of course you don’t know how it feels, he thinks angrily, and suddenly their proximity is too suffocating, and when Sho gets up from the bed without another word, Jun doesn’t make a move to stop him.

\--

There is a place in Sho’s heart that he saves for the one thing he’s always looking for. Sometimes, saving that spot for that something or someone is worth it because when he finally, finally finds it, finds _him_ , Sho can say he now knows how it feels to be whole, how it feels to be found instead of lost.

And yet there are times when reserving that place doesn’t pay off at all, and in those times Sho is left wandering, wandering and wandering till his time is up and he did nothing but wander all his life. Those are the times he likes to forget completely, and when he feels the familiar shift in his surroundings, there are tears in his eyes and he’s feeling so, so grateful that _at last_ , at long, long last the misery finally comes to an end. Most of the time he’s cursing his memory for resetting itself, but during those rare moments, he thanks it for being that way, thanks it profusely for saving itself from getting hurt further, from being overwhelmed by hopelessness.

It’s funny how his mind is linked to his heart and how he only realizes it when he’s getting a reset. Sometimes the reset is so unwanted that he feels as if something claws at his heart as his memory gradually gets wiped out. Sometimes he craves the reset so much that he feels his heart swell out of his chest and his heart rate spike at the mere thought of it.

Sometimes his mind is so overwhelmed by the feeling of someone with him that he deludes himself into thinking that he already knows this feeling by heart. And sometimes, but only sometimes, his heart is so overwhelmed by the feeling of someone with him that he deludes himself into thinking that he will never forget this, will never forget a thing.

As he watches the sun set, Sho thinks this is one of those times, one in which his heart feels like it will burst out of his chest, but out of combined frustration and elation. As the waves scatter sand around his feet, around their feet, he knows he’s frustrated with himself for not making it sooner, for making _him_ wait so long for only one shared moment in one lifetime, and at the same time he’s elated because he finally knows that _this is how it feels_ , this is how it feels for the solitude to be completely gone, this is how it feels when the search comes to an end.

“It’s you,” he says breathlessly, and when Jun smiles at him, Sho knows that this is the one, knows it without leaving any room for doubt. This is the one he chose to give his heart to, the one his mind chose to devote itself to. He knows, right now in this particular moment by the sea, standing by the shore with his hands entwined with Jun’s, he knows that he will never hate himself for making that decision, and knows with certainty that he will pick the same choice over and over again if asked because nothing will ever feel like this, nothing can make him feel like he’s floating and everything’s in their rightful place other than being with Jun.

“It’s you,” he repeats, still unable to believe it. It was always you, his mind says, and I’m starting to think it’ll always be you no matter what, his heart says, and together they say, because if I am to make a choice I think I’ll always pick you. Jun looks at him as if he understands, and for Sho that’s all he will ever need in this moment, in this time.

Jun asked only one thing from him and that is to let him have this, before taking one of Sho’s hands in his own and holding on to it tightly. Sho can do nothing but oblige, but he’s starting to believe that Jun knew what he was talking about, that he wasn’t only asking for one thing in one time but for everything else at the same time. He wonders if Jun has always been the selfish type, the type that will swallow Sho whole without even feeling guilty about it. Maybe he is, with the way he’s holding Sho. Their time together will never be enough, Sho realizes, and it leaves a gaping hole both in his heart and in his mind. Will it always be like this? One of them holding on desperately to the other as they try to make use of whatever time they’ve got, whatever time they have left to spend? Because that’s really awful and unfair if that were truly the case.

He wants to say, I wish we had more time, I wish I found you sooner, I wish I made it, but the ground is already shaking and Jun’s smile is already faltering, though his grip on Sho remains firm, strong. When Sho squeezes Jun’s hand Jun squeezes back, like an assurance that he’s here, he’s here with Sho right now and he’s not leaving Sho alone to this fate. For a moment, Jun’s holding on to him so desperately that Sho thinks he can actually take Jun with him, and in turn they have the entirety of the following lifetime to make up for this one they’ve missed by years and caught only by mere minutes.

But like always, when he opens his eyes he’s alone, surrounded by the scent of salt with water splashing on his feet and the stars over his head, the North Star standing out from the rest, and no matter how hard he tries, he has no idea why one of his hands is clenched so tight. When he tries to recall and he stretches his fingers outward to reveal his palm, he thinks he could have held both his heart and his mind inside and he still wouldn’t remember that he ever did.

Inexplicably, he has a feeling that he’s right about that.

\--

He wonders if it’s possible for a feeling to serve as a memory, and if it counts as an adequate replacement when he expects to find something in his head but instead finds nothing there. Memories are unreliable things, Sho thinks, and whenever he’s in between lifetimes he gets more than enough proof of that as the days pass. Sometimes he will find himself thinking he’s been in someplace before, that he’s done this particular something before only to realize that he has no memory of ever being there or ever doing it. It’s a cycle that he wants to escape from, and yet one he realizes he’ll be unable to for the rest of his life, so he looks for things to ground him, to tell him that things will be fine, things will be all right. But there are no such things and even if he spends a great fraction of his life looking, he knows he will always, always end up with nothing when the end comes and he’s simply waiting for everything to start back again, waiting for the inevitable.

Somehow, despite his utter hatred for his situation, somehow at one point he finds himself resigning to his fate. He finds himself accepting it for what it is, and the resignation doesn’t really feel like surrender, but that still doesn’t mean it’s okay with him. If he had his way, he’ll be fine with the idea of disappearing as long as his memories will remain. Then again, that’s not really up to him. Never been up to him to decide where he’ll turn up next, never been up to him to decide where he’ll disappear off to. Not that he remembers, but he has this nagging feeling that Jun just takes him to places when Sho’s time is almost up, and in the next lifetime, he’ll find himself in some place he has no idea how he ended up in. He’s starting to believe most of the lifetimes he got to spend with Jun in the past all ended in the same manner.

Sho’s life has consisted mostly of him being out of his element, and somehow, he found a way to be at peace with the idea of it. Strangely enough, he once thought that he’ll stop feeling that way when he finds the greater part of his soul he’s been searching for, but those days were long past. Jun likes to prove him wrong and likes to rub on his face just how much error he has committed, so Sho has long stopped thinking that way. Once, he made the mistake of thinking he’s finally standing on some solid, concrete ground and it took a split lip and a question of, “What do you want from me?” to remind him that that isn’t the case. And Sho may be the stubborn type, but he’s also the type who learns quickly, so every time he catches himself thinking he has everything figured out, he backtracks and tells himself, no, Sho, you haven’t. He tells himself he’s got a whack job for a memory and even bigger whack job for a head, so no, he hasn’t really figured out anything except the fact that he acknowledges that yes, he still doesn’t know where he stands even if he’s with Jun, most especially when he’s with Jun. He acknowledges that being with Jun still doesn’t tell him where his rightful place is.

And sometimes, that fact alone gets to him in the worst way possible, but when he starts blaming himself for all of it, Jun is the one telling him to shut the fuck up and stop being stupid because, “You think too much and let’s be real, did it ever do you any good?” and most of the time Jun’s right. Most of the time Sho can count on Jun to drag him back up when he’s in so deep that he’s actually starting to drown.

But there are also times when Jun’s the very reason he feels like he’s drowning and Sho really hates those times. Those are the moments when he feels like Jun’s cutting him open and examining every part of him, watching how every organ pulsates with life, observing how his heart pumps blood and how it continuously gives him life, then, when Jun’s done studying him he begins to take Sho apart, piece by piece, like he wants to find out what makes Sho Sho, what makes him the way he is and what exactly is inside him that makes him different from Jun. However those moments only happen after Sho shed a part of himself, opened up a part of himself to Jun, when he’s expecting anything really, anything but a scathing remark or worse, a scorching truth that makes him feel like he never truly learned, and that he will never truly learn. He hates those times because they turn his world upside down, and he thinks bitterly, if he hasn’t figured out even himself, how will he ever figure out everything else, how will he ever figure out Jun and whatever it is they have?

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe I’m not yours to figure out?” Jun asks him one time, and for a while Sho doesn’t know whether Jun did it to help him or to bury him deeper in self-doubt. For a while he doesn’t understand the meaning behind the question because he has a preformed concept of fated beings and he actually believed in the (“That’s just a load bullshit,” Jun tells him) idea that there’s a predetermined fate for everyone and that sometimes, those predetermined fates cross with another’s and they meet in the middle. For a while he wonders if he was so wrong to believe in that, only to realize that Jun’s question doesn’t have any underlying meaning, that he’s dissecting it to find answers underneath when in reality, the answers are just right in front of him.

When Sho finally realizes that just by knowing a name by heart doesn’t denote that that name belongs to him, he thinks he’s actually moving a step closer to meet Jun in the middle. He thinks he’s beginning to understand where Jun comes from, why Jun does most of the things he does when he’s with Sho. When he finally realizes that Jun is actually the selfless one out of the two of them, he finds himself agreeing, that yes, Jun isn’t his to figure out, to take apart and to put back together when he’s done because Jun’s not the one who’s trying to know every corner of Sho’s soul, Jun’s not the one trying to understand himself and Sho and what they have just to be able to say that he’s here, that he can actually feel and that it's proof that he's alive, breathing.

And really, Sho thinks, it’s just his damn fucking luck that Jun’s world doesn’t actually revolve around him exclusively, and possibly, not even at all.

\--

When Jun says to his face, “Not everything is about you,” Sho thinks this is all his fault, this is what he gets for letting Jun in, for letting himself fall that hard to the point that his heart is no longer his own, to the point it already has a mind of its own and Sho’s left watching, unable to do a thing to help it as it shatters itself to a thousand, tiny pieces, like all hearts do when they choose to love that much, to love that hard.

For a moment he actually considers breaking it off, this thing with Jun. Thing. He still doesn’t know what to call it because Jun’s too much of everything at the same time, too overwhelming and consuming, and apparently, Sho is too, for Jun at least because Jun says things like he’s tired, so tired and so sick of everything that is about Sho and about everything they have (and had) between them. For a moment Sho lets himself believe that he’s better, way better when he’s alone and Jun’s not with him and for a while, he actually thinks of it as true. Maybe it’s the rage that helps him believe. Maybe it’s the frustration combined with the rage. Or maybe it’s the lack of understanding between them, the lack of common ground where they can be themselves and no one’s hurting anyone and they’re just being who they really are.

But then again, maybe that’s just the way Jun really is. Maybe he hurts Sho so that he hurts less, maybe he throws people off because doing that makes him feel more grounded, more in control, more stable. Maybe Jun just likes playing games with the set of rules privy to him and him alone, so that when he rolls the dice Sho is still holding his breath, despite not knowing the meaning of whatever outcome there might be.

He asks then, softly, “Why do you say such things?” all too aware that his voice is betraying him, that it’s so evident that he’s breaking to tiny, tiny shards with cutting edges. He’s thinking maybe this is Jun’s plan all along, that Sho is his sole source of entertainment and nothing delights him more than the display of power that yes, he can do this much, can destroy this much without even trying. And Sho’s always the victim of such displays, always the butt of it.

So he does the only thing he can do and shows Jun that yes, you can do this much, you can destroy me this much without even trying, congratulations for that. He expects Jun to sneer, to revel in Sho’s display of weakness and vulnerability. He expects Jun to bury the knife deeper and twist it far more slowly, expects to see more of Jun's cruelty because if there’s one thing Jun’s good at it’s using the truth to his advantage and using it, more often than not, against Sho.

When Jun does not even one of these things and enough time has passed for the ache Sho’s feeling inside to be dulled, ebbed but still not vanishing, that’s when he hears Jun’s reply of, “It’s what I do best whenever I’m with you,” and for some reason he can’t fathom, he can no longer find himself being angry about that. Maybe he lost the ability to feel anger. Maybe he’s already robbed of that and there’s nothing left in him but the feeling of wanting to give up and to give up completely. Maybe he’s already beginning to give up.

That thought scares him, somewhat. It’s his attachment to his own self that brought that fear on, his belief that if he gives up now, he’s giving up a part of his soul, perhaps even the greater part of it and no matter how much he thinks he loves Jun, no matter how much he believes he is in love with Jun, that love still won’t surpass his need to cling to the remaining part of him that makes him feel whole, that makes him feel, yes, this is who I am and who I’m supposed to be, who I have to be. He supposes he has Jun to thank for that. It’s confusing because sometimes he’s capable of loving so much that he leaves almost completely nothing for himself, and yet sometimes, like now, he loves so much that he actually remembers to leave some, to save some for himself.

And that’s when he realizes that Jun’s like this, Jun will always be like this when he’s with Sho because that is Jun’s way of showing that he will always be honest with Sho and that whatever problems he might have, it’s not up to Sho to do something about it. It’s when he realizes that he can’t fight Jun’s demons for him, not when he has his own share of demons to fight as well. That’s when Sho realizes that maybe what they have isn’t past the point of fixing because there really is nothing left for him to fix in the first place because he already did his part and the rest is up to Jun.

It’s funny that he realizes this now and only now. Sho thinks he could have used the realization back when Jun’s telling him that he only remembers the name, not the person, back when there’s a thunderstorm outside and not even the sound of it can mask how his heart wants to free itself, to beat as fiercely as it wants to, to leave his ribs split wide open for all the world to see. He wishes he already knew that this is exactly what makes it work, whatever it is he and Jun have and whatever it is they share. It makes all the difference. Now Sho’s seeing things from a perspective he never even considered during that time he asked Jun, “Were you waiting?” Now he understands why Jun left instead of answering the question, and it’s because there’s nothing more frustrating than asking a question the both of you already know the answer to. There’s nothing more frustrating than wanting an assurance despite already having the knowledge that while some things don’t last, there are things that do, and finally, there will never be anything more frustrating than being human and letting it show.

Now, Sho thinks, now they’re both on the same page in the same book and when he meets Jun’s eyes, he feels his heart slowly mending itself, toughening up on its own as if to say, yes, I may love you, but that love will never be enough for you unless you let it, unless you let it in, and frankly, that’s no longer up to me.

\--

“You think it makes you strong,” Jun is saying, “when you tell people how much you love them. You think it strengthens you, gives you the assurance you want in order to satisfy some need you decided to thrust on somebody else’s hands, but it doesn’t do that because it doesn’t do anything.”

Sho wants to ask him to stop saying such things, wants to put an end to this conversation but Jun’s drunk, so intoxicated that he’s looking at Sho with glossy eyes and pink cheeks and Sho knows Jun’s so far gone that no amount of plea will make him stop, so Sho just lets him talk, just lets him take one drink after another.

Sho leans back on his elbows, trying his hardest to appear unaffected and unimpressed, and is silently glad he’s succeeding in at least one. “Is that what you think?” he asks, knowing that Jun’s already past the point where he can shut up and choose his words, so Sho takes advantage of the situation and tries to get as much truth as he can from Jun when Jun’s like this.

Jun empties another shot, scowling at the burn of alcohol running down his throat. “No, it’s what I know,” he says, wiping his mouth with his sleeve. “I know that being in love doesn’t change anything, doesn’t work wonders, and it’s about time you get to know that too,” and a part of Sho feels grateful that at least, when his time is up, he won’t remember ever having this conversation with Jun, the same way Jun won’t probably remember all of this happening come morning, when he’s bound to sport a hangover the moment he wakes up.

“But you know what, Sho? You know what?” Jun says with a small laugh, waving his drink at Sho’s direction, smiling like he just realized something ironic and Sho doesn’t even have to wait long this time. “That doesn’t mean I know how to stop. It doesn’t mean like that at all.”

So when Sho’s tasting blood on his lips after Jun just hit him square on the jaw and he remembers that night and realizes that it’s the closest to a confession he will ever get, he cherishes the memory for what it is and tucks it inside himself where he keeps most of things that make him feel that right now he’s here and nothing else should matter.

“One day you’re going to ask me the same question and I’m going to tell you the same thing,” he says to Jun when they’re both panting for breath, when Jun is trying his hardest to rein in his temper and Sho meets him head on. “Never mind my unwanted reset, fuck that, but when you ask me again what I want from you, I will say that that’s a question you should never ask anyone, ever, not even me.”

Jun looks at him with less vitriol this time. “Why not?” he asks, confusion slowly replacing most of the aggression from earlier, his shoulders relaxing minutely. Sho feels like laughing again because of course Jun doesn’t get it, of course he doesn’t understand, but he manages to suppress the urge.

“Because it’s not up to me to decide, it’s not up to me to ask anything from you,” he says. His breath escapes from his lips in angry huffs. “Everyone else might do otherwise, but not me. I’m not going to make your decisions for you.”

Jun doesn’t say anything, he just keeps staring at the blood caking on Sho’s lips and when he takes a step closer, for a moment Sho thought he was getting another punch so he braces himself and takes a precautionary step back, but Jun only tilts his head in question and reaches out with a thumb to wipe the corner of Sho’s mouth, and Sho knows it’s his way of saying he’s sorry about earlier.

Sho holds out a hand to him and when Jun takes it, he knows it’s a compromise, a truce for now.

\--

He promises Jun that he’ll remember, but Jun doesn’t even allow himself a moment to believe. “No, you won’t,” he says, and Sho thinks that part took a lot of years of practice, took a while to perfect, and who was he to blame Jun for it? Jun copes with their situation by using facts, by telling truths, by calling Sho out on his bullshit, and if that has worked out pretty well so far for him, Sho can’t really chastise him for it.

“Knowing and remembering are two different things, you know,” Jun says, and Sho wants to apologize for saying the wrong thing again but instead he says, “Yes, but maybe not that different.”

Jun raises an eyebrow. “Really,” he says, and it’s not even a question. Sho wants to laugh because it’s so like Jun to express doubt like this, but he doesn’t because Jun’s volatile enough as it is and he already said the wrong thing earlier. Strike one, he thinks. Sho’s a fuck up most of the time, but he’s not a fuck up all of the time.

“Really,” he affirms. “I should know, I’m the one whose mind screws itself up. But weirdly enough, it doesn’t screw itself up so much that I stop knowing some things.” He flips their entwined hands and rubs his thumb against Jun’s wrist, feeling his pulse. “Because I know some things. In fact, I still know some things.”

“Like what?” Jun asks. “What things?” and his voice sounds brittle to Sho’s ears, and Sho notes that this is probably the first time in this lifetime that Jun ever let him see through the cracks of his armor, through the cracks littering his sides of his cool façade.

“I won’t remember Oregon. Heck, I won’t even remember ever hearing you say that you’ll be there,” he shrugs. This part is difficult because it’s the truth. The truth is always either difficult to say or needs not to be said, but that doesn’t make it any easier to handle. Sho must choose his words carefully lest he risk turning Jun away without even hearing what he has to say. He’s had enough of that, had enough of Jun running away from him in one lifetime.

And honestly, Sho’s had enough of running after him. He’s already done so much of that in this, because before they got to lie under the stars like this there was a lot of running, looking around, searching, and a lot of never finding and trying in someplace again. It has become a cycle he’s grown tired of and he’s long given up on the idea that one day Jun might understand how that feels like, because he won’t, because he’s not the one in Sho’s place and Sho’s not the one remembering everything while waiting for, well, sometimes nothing at all.

Had their roles been reversed, Sho wonders if he’ll ever think of such things, if he’ll ever feel the same things. He doesn’t truly know and he’s starting to believe he’ll never know.

“But I think,” he swallows the lump forming in his throat. “I think I’ll still know how this feels, how being with you feels even when I don’t remember you, not exactly.”

Jun hums. “You think?” and Sho can hear amusement in his voice. Sho can feel Jun’s heartbeat elevate, his thumb on Jun’s pulse telling him everything he needs to know.

“I don’t, actually. I know.”

And sometimes, but only sometimes, that knowledge is enough for the both of them. Sometimes, the knowledge can suffice as a memory, and when Sho’s time is up, he proves that the very moment he gets to find Jun again because the very first thing that comes to his mind when he does is, “It’s you.”

It was always you.

\--

Finally, Sho asks Jun again, “How come I don’t remember?” and Jun looks at him with renewed interest, like he finally understood something he didn’t before and asks back, “Sho, don’t you think you never truly forgot anything?”

\--

Sho’s resets happen like this:

When he’s standing on some beach holding Jun’s hand as they meet for the first time and he doesn’t want to let go but wants to take Jun with him, and yet that’s not possible because that’s not how these things work. So when the world suddenly feels stable again and he opens his eyes, he finds himself underneath a blanket of twinkling stars and feeling so desolate, so hopelessly lost as the sounds of the waves crashing against the shore mask the faint beating of his heart.

When he’s actually under the stars and he thinks of names derived from the Greek myths, Pollux, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Castor, and he’s comforted by the knowledge that while he may not remember, he will still carry with him more than enough to go by till they meet again. When he can finally stand on his own and the world seems to finally return to normal that he can feel solid ground under his feet, for some reason he doesn’t understand and will probably never understand, he has an image of a gallant hero riding a flying horse, clutching the head of a Gorgon. As he looks up to the sky, he sees a small, white dot that somehow, in his eyes shines more brightly than the rest and he thinks, I know your name.

When he’s surrounded by the thrashing stalks of growing wheat and Jun doesn’t even let him finish saying, “I think I might actually be in love with you,” just assures him with an, “I know,” and it happens after he asks if Jun will tell him the same thing, if he will remind Sho when they meet again because there’s a chance Sho won’t remember Jun ever feeling the same, there’s a chance he will wallow in so much self-doubt that a portion of it will follow the part in him that he saves for Jun, contaminate it. There’s a chance he will feel so alone and so lost and he will need something to ground him, something that might actually be constant in the funny universe they both live in and he needs Jun to remind him of that. He always needed Jun to remind him of the important things. It happens after Jun says, no, after he _promises_ that he will, and that he will always do so, and when Sho turns up in the same field watching as the clouds move over his head, when he starts to feel the tendrils of frustration creeping up slowly in his veins, he feels a sudden sting at the crook of his neck and when he touches the skin, he notes that someone left a mark there, big enough for him to actually remember that he’s wanted, that he’s so desperately wanted.

And finally, it happens when they’re both expecting it and Jun’s drinking coffee from his mauve mug with a chip on the side, just the moment after he finished telling Sho about the first time they met, the actual first time, and after Sho realizes that that first time was also the last time Jun ever let him say the words, the last time Jun ever allowed himself to hear the words. It happens when he sees Jun’s favorite shirt hanging out to dry and he realizes that this isn’t the first time he’s seen that shirt, that he now knows why it’s a bit tattered on the edges, why it’s missing a few buttons. It happens when he’s finally beginning to understand.

\--

“What happens now?” Jun asks him, putting down his mug, letting the scent of caffeine permeate through the air, throughout the apartment.

“I’ll forget,” Sho answers. The truth is almost always better out than in, after all.

Jun scowls. “No, that’s what happens _after_. I said now. What happens now?” His fingers are drumming against the tabletop and Sho thinks that he does that to calm his nerves. It’s a rare sight and he allows himself a moment to relish in it. Jun’s almost always never nervous in front of him, except when he hands Sho the reins and tells him, “You lead, I’ll follow.”

“Ah,” Sho says, realizing his mistake. Jun’s always been the sharper one, the one with the keener eye for details, the one who always senses when something’s wrong and when time’s almost upon them. It’s funny to think about, that they actually do have a lot of time but never really get much from it, and in the few, selected moments in which they do, time catches up on them as if to say, “Okay, that’s enough.” He remembers teaching Jun how to play a piece and remembers how Jun reminded him that time isn't exactly on their side.

He smiles. “Now we wait.” He thinks the smile must have annoyed Jun somewhat. Though that wasn’t Sho’s intention, he finds that he’ll settle for it rather than have Jun storm out of the room and leave him alone. Somehow, a part of Sho believes that Jun never really left him alone, not even once, when his time is up and he’s beginning to feel the telltale signs of it. It’s a belief he never asked Jun to confirm because some things don’t really need confirmation in order for them to be true.

Jun keeps his eyebrow raised at him but when he says, “And after that?” it reveals too much. Sho hears the uncertainty, the doubt that he himself feels for more than three-fourths of every lifetime and he finally understands that Jun was telling the truth when he said he knew how being alone felt but not the feeling of being lost because Sho's always the one leaving, Sho's always the one leaving Jun alone. The way Jun asks him tells him everything he needs, and once again Sho realizes that most of what Jun does don’t possess any underlying meaning, that they’re exactly what they are and only need to be taken at face value.

“After that...” he pauses, thinks. What happens after that? What happens after he forgets, after he forgets how Jun looks like again, this house, and everything they shared in this? What happens after he forgets that Jun plays favorites and has things he keeps close to his heart? What happens after he forgets he tasted his own blood on his lips when he and Jun failed to meet in the middle, failed to compromise?

It hits him suddenly. How can he be so ignorant? “After that, I’ll find my way back.” Isn’t that what always happens after? He turns up in some place he has no idea how he ended up in, walks for a while, sometimes for a really long time, before finding what he’s looking for and telling himself, yes, this is home, I’m finally back home?

Jun narrows his eyes. Sho thinks it’s going to take him a lot of effort to convince Jun, but he’ll be damned if he doesn’t try. Jun still doesn’t understand, and thankfully he’s expressive enough to let Sho know, expressive enough to show that they’re still not on the same page despite being in the same book. “What makes you so sure?” he asks, and Sho searches for Jun’s eyes, realizing that he can’t see the ends of it, can't see the bottom of the pool.

“I’m not,” he admits. He wants to turn back time and add a ‘maybe’ when he said he’ll find his way back. Jun always catches on to every miss, every mistake he makes. Sometimes he’s glad Jun does so because he needs it, needs the reminder when he’s overlooking things. Yet there are times when he wishes Jun will just let it go because the guilt he feels sometimes builds up and becomes seemingly insurmountable in a few days. Right now, Sho just shrugs. Right now, it really doesn’t make him feel anything other than being thankful that Jun actually lets him talk. Maybe it’s the time creeping upon them, rearing its ugly head, reminding them that they haven't got left. Maybe it's the inevitability of it that makes Jun listen to whatever he has to say.

Jun never takes his eyes away from him. “And yet you still tell me.”

“And yet I still tell you.”

“Why?” The confusion is so evident on Jun’s face that he’s actually frowning at Sho.

Sho cocks his head. “Don’t you see? Even when I don’t remember anything, I remember you,” he explains, and he holds up a hand when Jun opens his mouth, to stop whatever Jun wants to say, which is most likely to counter what he just said, because Jun needs to hear this. Jun needs to know this, and honestly, Sho thinks he won’t find rest until Jun does.

“It was always you,” he insists because what his head might never remember, his other senses will. He’s certain he will remember the taste of his own blood, the feeling of Jun all over him, him inside Jun and Jun inside him, the feeling of touching and being touched. He’s certain that while he may not remember how Jun looks like, he will remember the feeling of being with him when he finds his way back again. “I’m actually starting to think it’s going to be you no matter what.”

Jun leans back on his chair, the frown disappearing from his face. “Well,” he says, licking his lips. “I guess we’ll just have to wait and find out if that’s indeed the case.”

And that, Sho realizes, is Jun’s way of saying he understands. That is Jun’s way of telling him that he sees where Sho’s standing and understands why he’s there, Jun’s way of telling him that he’s meeting Sho halfway, and that perhaps that’s all they will ever need, in this lifetime and in the lifetimes to come.

Minutes pass, and when Sho finally feels the pull they’ve both been waiting for, he says, “Don’t wait for me,” and Jun shakes his head, a small smile on his face. “Can’t promise you that.” Jun walks over to where he stands and Sho counts the markings on Jun’s face and remembers that he also has one near his nipple and another one behind his ear.

He smiles back, feeling prepared, and when he opens his mouth his voice is steady. “Then I’ll see you soon.”

\--

“When we meet again, will you remind me?”

“Yes. Always.”

**Author's Note:**

> The scene with the saddest word is inspired by Tiny Stories, written by Nikita Gill. The quote, "If it looks real and feels real, do you think it matters if it's real?" is taken from Another Faust, by Daniel Nayeri. That was a complete rip-off and I'm sorry.
> 
> The piece I had in mind when Sho's teaching Jun how to play is The Heart Asks Pleasure First from the OST of The Piano, composed by Michael Nyman. You can listen to it [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l34dnf1w0U8). This was used in Shiyagare quite recently.
> 
> Lastly, this story was partially inspired by Clint Mansell's Together We Will Live Forever from the OST of The Fountain, which you can listen to right [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LN6YvkEPkwQ). The remaining portion of the inspiration I attribute to Sho's quote of him and Jun being [two halves of a whole](http://say-it-again.livejournal.com/106728.html).
> 
> I'm considering writing a version of this that is Jun's pov, but please don't hold me to that.


End file.
